Hyderabad. In an act of appeasement politics, Telangana government extended its financial assistance to an additional 7,000 muezzins and imams under a new order issued on August 7, 2023. This brings the total number of beneficiaries to 17,000.
The scheme was introduced by K Chandrashekar Rao under the “Assistance to Telangana Waqf Board” in 2015. In the initial phase, it provided a payment of Rs. 12 crores per year to 5,000 mosques at the rate of Rs.1,000/- per month each to one Imam and one Muezzin per mosque.
In April 2017, the government increased the honorarium per Imam/ Muezzin to Rs. 1,500 per month, and in September 2018, it was further increased to Rs. 5,000 per month. At present rates of payment @ Rs.5,000/- to each Imam and Muezzin per month for a total of 9,995 members.
At present rates, the outgo from public exchequer on these accounts comes to Rs. 60 crores per annum. With additional coverage of 7,000 Imams / Muezzins, the annual outgo from the public exchequer will be Rs. 112 crore per annum.
The Supreme Court in its previous judgments on similar issue of payment of honorarium to religious workers from public funds, opined that such schemes should be funded by the respective state waqf boards, not by public funds. The court has also stated that it never directed the state government or the central government to take responsibility for making payments to imams.
Telangana Waqf Board earns Rs. 6 crore annually. One percent goes to the Central Waqf Council, and the remaining 6% goes towards payment of salaries and other expenses for the officers and staff. The difference between the board’s income and expenses is high and is met from budgetary support from public exchequer. As such, bringing additional Imam/ Muezzins under monthly honorarium scheme puts additional burden on public exchequer and is clearly seen as an appeasement policy towards Muslims.
The citizens of Telangana feel that the above scheme is discriminatory and that the government should not be using public funds to fund it. The ever increasing coverage of monthly payment to Muslim religious workers is seen as an indirect way of creating a committed Muslim vote bank for ruling party by appeasing the Muslim religious workers who will, in turn influence their community members to vote for the present ruling BRS party.
Constitutional provisions for minority welfare and development were put in place to improve the socio-economic conditions of the minority community at large. The founding fathers of our constitution never envisaged that their noble intentions would be misused to create vote banks through appeasement of religious workers of minorities in the name of minority welfare.