Maharashtra Housing Minister Jitendra AwhadActivist and former vice-chairman of the Minorities Commission, Dr Abraham Mathai, on Friday wrote a letter to Maharashtra Housing Minister Jitendra Awhad, seeking 15 per cent reservation for minorities in the state’s new housing policy.
Mathai, president of the Harmony Foundation, said, “It should be noted that the country today is on the edge of… losing its secular character as well as its global standing of being the world’s largest democracy. The rapacious cancer of communalism… and radicalism… is devastating the fabric of nationhood, which had kept communities in harmony… for decades.”
He said that as the state government works towards framing its new housing policy over the next three months, it is incumbent on the government to integrate minorities into the mainstream society to prevent them from falling prey to “peddlers of destructive ideologies”.
“More than quotas for jobs, housing reservation should be the top priority as the need of the hour is to enhance cohesion and integration at the base of the Indian society. To foster this, private developers should also be roped in and given incentives to adopt and include the 15 per cent reservation for religious minorities…,” Mathai wrote.