District Plan of North Sikkim Approved

The Total Number of Minority Concentration Districts Whose Plans Have Been Approved by the Ministry of Minority Affairs under Multi-Sectoral Development Programme Goes up to 81


The Ministry of Minority Affairs has approved the District Plan of the North Sikkim district, which is the only Minority Concentration District (MCD) of Sikkim, under the Multi- sectoral Development Programme ( MsDP ) for the welfare of Minorities . Under this approval an amount of Rs. 6.43 crore has been sanctioned. Out of this the Central Government’s share will be Rs. 5.78 crore. North Sikkim is categorized as a ‘B-2’ sub-category district which has basic amenities parameters below the national average.

With this, the total number of MCDs whose District Plans have been approved by the Ministry of Minority Affairs has gone up to 81. Thus, out of 90 MCDs, now only 9 districts remain whose District Plans are yet to be approved. Of these 9, two are from Assam (whose plans for other 11 MCDs have already been approved) and 7 are from Arunachal Pradesh. In the case of Arunachal Pradesh, the state has 7 MCDs – of which majority districts are categorized as category-‘A’ districts thereby having both socio-economic and basic amenities parameters below the national average; but the District Plan of none of these could be approved as none has been submitted by the State Government, despite repeated requests by the Ministry.


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