19.06.2012, New Delhi, India – Islamic Development Bank Group’s President, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali conferred in New Delhi with Indian Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Minister for Minority Affairs, and Law & Justice Salman Khurshid and Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahmed.
During the meetings, Dr. Ali highlighted IDB Group’s role in upgrading economic and social development of the Bank’s member countries as well as Muslim communities in non-member countries. He touched upon ways for promoting social and economic cooperation between IDB Group and India’s Muslim community on a number of grounds including development of Awqaf properties, managing savings for successful Hajj Pilgrimage, the need for introducing technology-based programs (such as distance learning) in
the schools managed by this community.
It is worth mentioning that IDB has so far supported 267 educational institutions in India with financial assistance amounting to US$ 42.8 million as grants. It launched a Scholarship Program in 1983 enabling outstanding Indian Muslim students to pursue higher studies in universities in various science and engineering related disciplines. To date, the total number of beneficiaries in the Scholarship Program in India stands at 3,819 (comprising 2,986 males and 833 females). So far, 2,564 students
have graduated as medical doctors and engineers. A refund of US$ 2.25 million received from 1,026 ex-scholarship holders now in the job market has practically led to offering 852 new additional scholarships.
During his visit to India, the IDB Group President addressed the opening session of a conference on “Hajj Pilgrimage Management” where he expressed IDB Group’s readiness to cooperate with India so that the Indian Muslim community could benefit from the Malaysian experience in Hajj management by replicating Malaysia’s “Tabung Haji” (TH) model. The Tabung Haji is an Islamic savings institution in Malaysia specialized in managing the savings of its deposit holders enabling them to perform Hajj
pilgrimage by investing their savings as per Islamic financing principles in various economic activities.
“It is an important financial institution not only for management of Hajj pilgrimage but also for encouraging individuals to save money for various purposes such as education and marriage in addition to investing their income in different economic sectors”, stated the IDB Group President.
On the sidelines of the event, Dr. Ali met with officials of India’s IDB Graduates Association (IGA), the Board of Trustees of Muslim Education Trust and the Indian Center for Islamic Finance.