Patna, July 22 (IANS) The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has criticised the government sponsored scheme of providing vocational training to Muslim girls in Bihar. VHP international general secretary Praveen Togadia said the scheme, ‘Hunar’ (skills), was an example of appeasement of Muslims by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

“By launching schemes like ‘Hunar’ exclusively for Muslim girls, and no such scheme for Hindu girls, Nitish Kumar was pursuing appeasement of Muslims for vote bank politics,” Togadia said.

As per the scheme, launched July 2, about 12,000 Muslim girl students will get vocational training in the first phase, while the second phase will see over 50,000 students benefiting from it.

Muslim girls will be trained in seven courses including jute production, cutting and tailoring, early childhood care and education and beauty culture.

“The government must to explain it to the people why provide skills training to Muslim girls only,” Togadia said.

Togadia said it was unfortunate that the “Kumar led government was appeasing Muslims with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party”.

According to the 1991 census, the Muslim population in Bihar was over 10 million, which is 15.7 percent of the state’s population of 83 million.

Despite several schemes for minorities, only 36 percent of the Muslims in Bihar are literate. Muslim women in Bihar have a lower literacy rate of 31.5 percent.