Mangaluru: Chief Whip in Legislative Council and MLC Ivan D’Souza said that two lakh brochures have been printed and are being circulated across the state to create awareness among the people belonging to the Christian community, on the various facilities provided by the government to them.

"The government has chalked out various schemes for the Christian community, reserving Rs 3,750 crore for minorities in the budget, highest among any of the states in the country, through its department of minority welfare. In this, Rs 800 crore is meant for Christian communities of various disciplines. But only a few Christians are utilising the benefits," he said.

"In order to create awareness on the programmes, I took an initiative to print brochures containing information on schemes such as self-employment schemes, Shrama Shakthi, Arivu loan, National Overseas Scholarship, Diary farming, Ganga Kalyana, Goods and Taxi purchase, Hostel facilities and skill development programmes, he added.

He said that in order to provide free coaching for competitive examinations for students belonging to minorities, along with the existing scholarship schemes, plans are afoot to establish training centers each in four divisions in the state: Hyderabad-Karnataka, Mysuru-Karnataka, Mumbai -Karnataka and Bangaluru Subdivision. Also, minority hostels will be built in the areas having more minority population.