NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Chief Ministers to fix targets for each programme under the new 15-point programme for minorities' welfare.

In a letter to them before leaving on a nine-day visit to Latin America on Sunday, Dr. Singh asserted the importance of maintaining peace and communal harmony, providing the minorities a fair share in Central and State Government employment, including public sector undertakings, and implementing schemes for their economic uplift.

Highest-level attention

While emphasising the need to set up mechanisms to monitor the progress of the programme, Dr. Singh said a Committee of Secretaries would monitor the implementation and submit a report to the Cabinet. Dr. Singh asked the Chief Ministers to put in place a similar mechanism so that the programme received "due attention at the highest level."

Dr. Singh said that in 1983, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced a 15-point programme for the welfare of the minorities. The programme was designed to counter the menace of communal disharmony and violence, ensure jobs for the minorities in Government employment and provide them a fair share in programmes for economic empowerment.

Over the years, a large number of developmental schemes had been introduced to address specific problems relating to education, health, employment and shelter for the poor and the underprivileged, he pointed out.

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