A parliamentary standing committee has pulled up the government for a lip service to the recommendations of the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee it had itself constituted in 2005 to study status of Muslims in India, pointing out that it was not attending to the "crux of the problems" brought out in its report.

In a report tabled in both the Houses of Parliament, the committee on social justice and empowerment lashed out at the Minority Ministry that "all the recommendations of the Sachar Committee are not being implemented seriously...except for certain schemes like the scholarship and the scheme of grant-in-aid through Maulana Azad Foundation."

The committee, headed by the BSP's Dara Singh Chauhan, called for bringing a legislation in Parliament for implementing the committee's recommendations as it felt they would be implemented more forcefully "if there is a legal force behind implementing these recommendations."

The 28-member committee, with members from all parties in Parliament, also asked the government to expeditiously bring up a legislation for setting up an Equal Opportunity Commission as recommended by Justice (retd) Sachar.

It noted that the Sachar report highlighted the deplorable socio-economic condition of Muslim community and made specific recommendations "which if implemented in letter and spirit would go a long way in uplifting the minority community."

The committee also pulled up the Minority Ministry headed by Salman Khurshid for surrendering huge funds to the tune of Rs 587.70 crores meant for the minority uplift schemes during 2010-11 and these include pre-matric, post-matric and merit-cum-means scholarships and computerisation of records of the state wakf boards. 

It called for review of status of the fund utilisation by states and persuade the slow performing states to send proposals well on time for full utilisation of the scholarship slots.