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NEW DELHI, Dec 15: The Government on Thursday told the Lok Sabha that there is no proposal at present to grant constitutional status to the National Commission for Minorities.
In a written response to a question in the lower house by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani said the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) was established as a statutory body with the enactment of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 by Parliament.
This Act came into force with effect from May 17, 1992, she said.
"Under section 2 (c) of the said Act, the central government has notified five religious communities namely, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians (Parsis) as minority communities," she said.
Subsequently, the central government further notified the Jain community as a minority community vide notification on January 27, 2014, the minister said.
"Further, there is no proposal, at present, to grant constitutional status to the National Commission for Minorities," she said.
In response to another question as to whether it is true that the number of beneficiaries has decreased under the Pre-Matric and Post-Matric scholarship schemes in 2020-21 in comparison to 2019-20, Irani said there is state-wise/community-wise quota for fresh scholarships under pre-matric and post-matric scholarship schemes.
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