Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led State Minorities Development and Welfare Department, in association with the Board of Wakfs, has approved formation of a corpus worth Rs 1 crore for funding the children's education.
For a majority of imams, the salary is quite low. Sources said that while they offer dedicated services to mosques, their salaries are not enough to meet their requirements.
"We will be using around 10 per cent of the corpus money annually. The scheme will help children who are not in a position to avail other scholarships --- may be due to poor results --- but still intend to pursue higher education," Abdus Sattar, Minister of State for Minorities told The Indian Express.
The government had earlier taken various measures to support imams. These included revision of wages of imams representing mosques that are under the direct management of the Wakf Board. A series of training programmes have also been introduced by the State Minorities Department.