New Delhi, Jan 20 (IANS) The government will soon implement all recommendations of the Rajinder Sachar committee to improve the socio-economic status of the minority Muslim community, Minorities Affairs Minister Abdul Rehman Antulay said Saturday.

"The government intends to shortly implement in toto all recommendations of the Sachar Committee," he said in Aligarh town in Uttar Pradesh.

He was addressing a minority community convention presided over by Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Salman Khurshid.

The Sachar panel late last year came out with a report on the socio-economic state of the Muslims, constituting about 13 percent of India's population.

"I want to make it amply clear that both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi are determined to implement all policies aimed at the uplift of the minorities in the country," he said.

He said the country's progress would be held up if the minority community continued to languish in social and economic backwardness.

"We are all to be equally blamed for this sad state of neglect and I have no hesitation in owning up the responsibility of my own party and I apologise to the Muslims for the present state of affairs," he said.