HYDERABAD, India (UCAN) -- Church people in Andhra Pradesh state welcome two programs its government has announced aimed at helping Christians.

On Nov. 13, the government said it was setting up a Christian Minority Finance Corporation and create a separate wing for Christians in the state's minority welfare department.

The finance corporation would lend money at an interest rate lower than banks charge, the goal being for beneficiaries to be able to earn a livelihood and still repay the loans. The new section for Christians in the minority department will look into problems the community faces in the state.

A government notification on Nov. 13 said the schemes are attempts to respond to various requests from Christian groups during the past year.

Lingaraj Panigrahi, principal state secretary, signed the order, which provides for a managing director and two consultants among the corporation's other staff. The government also allotted the corporation a budget of 2.8 million rupees (about US$57,300).

Welcoming the government moves, Archbishop Marampudi Joji of Hyderabad, the head of the Catholic Church in the state, said the corporation will give poor Christians an opportunity to progress.

Hyderabad, the state capital and base of the archdiocese, is 1,500 kilometers south of New Delhi.

Archbishop Joji told UCA News on Nov. 14 that Church groups have sought a welfare department for Christians for more than a decade. "It is good the government has at least consented for a separate cell under the minority welfare department," he said, adding that the Church would cooperate with the government.

Father Anthoniraj Thumma, one of the two secretaries of the ecumenical Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches (APFC), also welcomed the government announcement. The federation was among the four groups that pressured the government for greater attention to Christian welfare.

Father Thumma told UCA News that Church people sought a separate department for Christian welfare after noticing an "anomaly" in the existing system. According to the Hyderabad archdiocesan priest, Muslims, the largest minority community in the state, have received most of the funds the department for minority welfare has disbursed.

In India, the government uses finance corporations to support several poor social groups through loans. It also guarantees some loans members of these communities take from banks.

B. Danam, the other APFC secretary, hailed the government announcement as "a good beginning." He also discounted allegations that the moves are aimed at appeasing Christians ahead of the elections scheduled for May 2009, when the present government's term ends.

"That is not true. We have been seeking this for a long time now," Danam told UCA News on Nov. 16. "It got delayed because the government has to follow many procedures."

According to Danam, a retired civil service officer, the government did not agree to Christians' demand for a separate department for the community, saying their population did not justify such a claim. Instead, it agreed to open a separate wing in the minority welfare department.

Christians form 1.6 percent of the state's 76.8 million people. Muslims account for 9.2 percent and Hindus 89 percent.

Church people estimate more than 80 percent of the state's Christians come from socially and economically disadvantaged groups.

The Christian section of the minority department will disburse about 52.5 million rupees on various schemes annually: 7.5 million for mass marriages of poor Christians, 20 million for pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and 25 million for renovation and construction of churches.

Archbishop Joji said Church leaders have asked the government to increase the pilgrimage subsidy to help more Christians visit the Holy Land.

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