Bihar state Shia Waqf Board’s journey of turnaround
Irshad Ali Azad
Maeeshat |Patna
Bihar state Shia Waqf Board is consistently in media glare for the development works as well as welfare activities it has been pursuing in the last few years. These activities have been running parallel to the board’s campaign against illegal occupation. The campaign has resulted in recovery of properties worth hundreds of crores. The Shia Waqf board has won more than sixty legal cases since Irshad Ali Azad took over as chairman in 2016. The young and dynamic chairman is heralding a drastic turnaround in the functioning of the board which otherwise sounds like an obsolete institution.
Recovery of prime properties
Last year the board has been in limelight for winning the legal battles against occupations on its properties which includes more than 2500 crore worth prime plots at Dackbanglow in the state capital Patna. It is on these very plots some of the capital’s top businesses and organisations such as Central Mall, Zero-One Mall, Kaushalaya estate, Times of India buildings, Rizwan palace are situated.
Altaf Nawab waqf estate Patna, Md. Nadir Ali Waqf estate Patna City, Kalbe Ali Khan waqf estate, Ashok Rajpath, Patna, Khursheed Hasnain waqf estate, Kumharar, Patna, Bibi Habiban Waqf estate Muzaffarpur, Mahmudunnisa waqf estate, Motihari are some of the other properties which are recently recovered by the board.
Development and welfare initiatives
These properties are either being developed according to the social requirement of the locality or are being leased for the purposes of school, religious seminary, hospitals, recreation centre, library, banquet halls, residential plots, shopping mall, show rooms etc. As income is growing, the Board is venturing into new avenues of community services like, giving monetary assistance to vulnerable sections, ambulance service etc.
Since then the board took multiple initiatives for the accessibility of education among the minority community of Bihar. It is pooling its resources to facilitate affordable education to the lower strata of the community. If successful, it would fulfill one of the prime objectives behind the endowments (Waqf) of these properties.
“At the moment, the board’s thrust is on widening the educational avenues of the community. We have taken several steps in this regard: scholarships for students, provisions of free admission of poor community children in the private schools which are running on waqf’s plots and providing land to Bihar government for opening residential minority schools are few of them. We have been working on many other such initiatives so as to utilise the waqf properties to achieve the objective”, Irshad Ali Azad told TheNewsWeb.
Land for minority residential schools
The Board is providing land to the state government in districts to establish residential schools for boys and girls belonging to the community. Bihar government has proposed to run at least one such school in each district on the model of Navoday Vidhyala, where meritorious students get quality education. These schools will run for secondary and higher secondary level, i. e., 9th to 12th standard.
The process of handing over the land has been completed in Siwan, Muzaffarpur, Purnea, Nalanda, Shekhpura, Katihar, Kishanganj, Jamui, Sitamarhi and Bhagalpur districts.
Scholarships
The Board’s income is being spent on various welfare schemes: offering scholarships to the needy students is one of them. For example, more than 40% of 1.6 crore income from Fazal Imam trust, Fraser road, Patna is allocated for the deserving students pursuing technical/ professional education.
Free schooling
Recently, in a land dispute with a capital’s well-known school, a court pronounced the verdict in the favour of Shia Waqt Board. After getting its land right accepted, the board made an agreement of lease with the same school on condition that 100 poor minority students get free education in it every academic year. Similarly, other private schools which are running on the land of the Board, have agreed to induct a certain number of poor minority children, either free or, on nominal fee.
According to the board officials, the organisation is keen to provide its lands on lease to quality educational institutions, so that more and more community children can avail the opportunity of learning.