summary of sachar report on status of indian muslims

7/28/2019 Summary of Sachar Report on Status of Indian Muslims

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Report of the Prime Minister’s High Level Committee (headed by JusticeRajindar Sachar) on Social, Economic and Educational Status of theMuslim Community of India

While issuing notification during March 2005 the Prime Minister’s Officehad noted that there is - lack of authentic information about the social,economic and educational status of the Muslim community of India.

The PMO had observed that such lack of information comes in the way of planning, formulating and implementing specific interventions, policiesand programmes to address the issues relating to the socio-economicbackwardness of this community.

Summaryof

Sachar Report onStatus of Indian Muslims



Hence, the Prime Minister’s High Level Committee was mandated toobtain relevant information from departments / agencies of the Centraland State Governments and also conduct an intensive literature survey toidentify published data, articles and research on relevant status of Muslims in India.

The Committee was to find out the asset base and income levels of Muslims relative to other groups across various states and regions. It hadto find out the level of socio-economic development of Muslims in termsof relevant indicators such as religious rate, drop out rate, MMR, IMR etc.

What is their relative share in public and private sector employment? Isthis share in proportion to their population in various states? If not, whatare the hurdles?

The Committee was to find the proportion of OBCs from the Muslim

community in the total OBC population. Are the Muslim OBCs listed in thecomprehensive list of OBCs, prepared by the National and StateBackward Classes Commissions. What is the share of Muslim OBCs in thetotal public sector employment for OBCs.



The Committtee had also to find out whether the Muslim community hasadequate access to the education and health services, municipalinfrastructure, bank credit and other services provided by theGovernment and public sector entities. This was to be compared with theaccess enjoyed by the other communities. What is the level of socialinfrastructure (schools, health centres, ICDS centres etc.) located in areasof Muslim concentration in comparison to the general level of such

infrastructure.

The Committee was to identify areas of intervention by the Governmentto address the relevant issues relating to the social, economic andeducational status of the Muslim community.

The Report which was presented to the Prime Minister on 17 November2006 and was tabled in Parliament on 30 November 2006 has twelvechapters.

Chapter I is introductory.

Chapter II talks of Public Perceptions and Perspectivesgathered by the Committee during its widespread interactionwith the people and their representatives while it visited 13most Muslim populous states and organized 5 Round TableConferences in Delhi.



Chapter III deals with the population size, distribution andhealth conditions of Muslims etc.

In the subsequent chapters the Committee has analyzed theeducational condition of Muslims, their economy andemployment, their access to bank credits, their access tosocial and physical infrastructure, their poverty level and

standard of living, their participation in governmentemployment and programmes and empirical situation of Muslim OBCs.

There is a separate chapter of Wakfs talking about economicpotential of Wakf assets, constraints regarding the fulfillmentof Wakf objectives and suggestions for overcoming suchconstraints. In the last chapter the Committee has given itsrecommendations.

The Committee noted that the public opinion in India was divided onreservation.

Some argued that policies that promote equality must aim at asubstantive equal outcome, not merely formal equal or identicaltreatment.



Reservations or a separate quota for Muslims in employment andeducational institutions was viewed as a means to achieve this.

Others felt that reservations could become a thorny issue and havenegative repercussions.

Still others argued that good educational facilities combined with non-discriminatory practices are adequate for Muslims to compete.

Those who argued for reservation policies often differed on who shouldbe their beneficiary. Some argued that this facility should only beavailable to ‘dalit’ Muslims, while others suggested that the entireCommunity should benefit from it.

For some an economic criterion was an ideal basis for reservations.

They felt that this would fail to address the problem arising out of social

discrimination.

There were voices that questioned the non-availability of the ScheduleCaste quota for Muslims while it was available to the followers of threereligions.

A large cross sectionof the people was of the conviction thatpolitical participationand representation in

governancestructures areessential to achieveequity.

Many alleged thatparticipation isdenied to Muslimsthrough a variety of mechanisms. While itwas pointed out thatmany names of Muslims were missing

in the voter lists of a number of states, the Committee’s attention wasalso drawn to the issue of Muslim concentration constituencies of Assemblies and Parliament declared as reserved for Schedule Castepersons while constituencies with very low Muslim population but high SCconcentration remain unreserved.



Hence, it was argued that Muslims are being systematically deniedpolitical participation. The Committee collected data from all over thecountry in the light of which the second allegation regarding reservationof constituencies was found to be correct. For the first allegation theCommittee did not collect any data.

In the field of literacy the Committee found that the rate among Muslimswas far below the national average.

The gap between Muslims and the general average is greater in urbanareas and women.

25 per cent of Muslim children in the 6-14 year age group haveeither never attended school or have dropped out.

Expansion of educational opportunities since Independence has not led toa convergence of attainment levels between Muslims and all others.

Drop out rates among Muslims are higher at the level of primary, middleand higher secondary.

The Committee observed that since artisanship is a dominant activityamong Muslims technical training should be provided to even thosewho may not have completed schooling.

The disparity in graduation attainment rates is widening since 1970sbetween Muslims and all other categories in both urban and rural areas.

In premier collegesonly one out of 25under-graduatestudents and one outof 50 post-graduatestudents is a Muslim.

Unemployment rateamong Muslimgraduates is thehighest among allsocio-religious

communities.

Only 3% of Muslimchildren among theschool going age go to

Madarsas.



There is dearth of facilities for teaching Urdu. Lower enrolment in Urdumedium schools is due to limited availability of such schools at theelementary level.

The Committee found that Muslim parents are not averse to

mainstream education or to send their children to affordableGovernment schools. But the access to government schools for Muslimchildren is limited.

There is non-availability of schools within easy reach for girls at lowerlevels.

Absence of girls hostels and female teachers are also impeding factors.

The changes in the educational patterns across the various religiousgroups and communities suggests that the schedule castes and scheduletribes have definitely reaped the advantages of targeted government andprivate action supporting their educational progress.

This reflects the importance of affirmative action.

The sharper focus on school education combined with more opportunitiesin higher education for Muslims seems desirable.

Moreover, skill development initiatives for those who have not completedschool education may also be particularly relevant for some sections of Muslims given their occupational structure.

Bidi workers, tailors and mechanics need to be provided with socialsafety nets and social security.

The participation of Muslims in the professional and managerialcadre is low.

Muslim regular workers are the most vulnerable with no written contractand social security benefits.

Muslim regular workers get lower daily earnings in both public andprivate jobs compared to other socio-religious communities.

Since a large number of Muslim workers are engaged in self-employment, skill development and credit related initiatives needto be tailored for such groups.

The average amount of bank loan disbursed to the Muslims is 2/3 of theamount disbursed to other minorities.



In some cases it is half. The Reserve Bank of India’s efforts to extendbanking and credit facilities under the Prime Minister’s 15-pointprogramme of 1983 has mainly benefited other minorities marginalizingMuslims.

Muslim community is not averse to banking and more improvements canbe brought about with specific measures.

Inadequate targeting and geographical planning has resulted in a failureto address the economic problems of Muslims in rural areas. Some bankshave identified a number of Muslim concentration areas as negativegeographical zones where bank credit and other facilities are not easily

provided.



Steps should be introduced to specifically direct credit to Muslims, createawareness of various credit schemes and bring transparency in reporting

of

information.

There is a clear and significant inverse association between theproportion of the Muslim population and the availability of educational

infrastructure in small villages.



Muslim concentration villages are not well served with pucca approachroads and local bus stops.

The concentration of Muslims in states lacking infrastructural facilitiesimplies that a large proportion of the community is without access to

basic services.

In both urban and rural areas, the proportion of Muslim households livingin pucca houses is lower than the total population.

Compared to the Muslim majority areas, the areas inhabiting fewerMuslims had better roads, sewage and drainage and water supplyfacilities.

Substantially larger proportion of the Muslim households in urban areasare in the less than Rs.500 expenditure bracket.

The presence of Muslims has been found to be only 3% in the IAS,1.8% in the IFS and 4% in the IPS.

The share of Muslims in employment in various departments is abysmallylow at all levels.

Muslim community has a representation of only 4.5% in Indian Railwayswhile 98.7% of them are positioned at lower levels.

Representation of Muslims is very low in the Universities and in Banks.

In no state does the representation of Muslims in the government

departments match their population share.

Their share in police constables is only 6%, in health 4.4%, in transport6.5%.

There is need to ensure a significant presence of Muslims especially inthose departments that have mass contact on a day to day basis or areinvolved in sensitive tasks.

Targeted programmes are required to be put in place.

The coverage of Muslims in ICDS programme is poor in most states. For

the Maulana Azad Education Foundation to be effective the corpus fundneeds to be increased to 1000 crores. Total allocation in the four years2002 to 2006 for Madarsa Modernization Scheme is 106 crores. Theinformation regarding the Scheme has not adequately percolated down.Even if the share of Muslims in elected bodies is low they and other underrepresented segments can be involved in the decision making processthrough innovative mechanisms.



The Presidential Order of 1950 is inconsistent with Article 14, 15, 16 and25 of the Constitution that guarantee equality of opportunity, freedom of conscience and protect the citizens from discrimination by the State ongrounds of religion, caste or creed.

Most of the variables indicate that Muslim-OBCs are significantly deprivedin comparison to Hindu-OBCs.

The work participation rate (WPR) shows the presence of a sharpdifference between Hindu-OBCs (67%) and the Muslims. The share of Muslim-OBCs in government/ PSU jobs is much lower than Hindu-OBCs.

Out of every hundred workers about eleven are Hindu-OBCs, only threeare Muslim-Gen and one is a Muslim-OBC.

The monthly Per Capita Expenditure of Muslims is much lower than thenational average.



Benefits of entitlements meant for the backward classes are yet to reachMuslim OBCs. The condition of Muslims in general is also lower than theHindu-OBCs who have the benefit of reservations.

There are about 5 lakh registered Wakfs with 6 lakh acre land andRs 6,000 crore book value. But the gross income from all theseproperties is only 163 crores i.e. 2.7%. The management of Wakf Boards is unsatisfactorily due to inadequate empowerment of theState Wakf Boards and Centreal Wakf Council. Encroachment of Wakf properties by the State is a common practice. The attitude of the State

Governments and their agencies has resulted in large scale abrogation of the cherished objectives of the Wakfs. Fresh institutional support isessential. A number of Wakf properties have been acquired althoughcompensation was not paid. High legislative, administrative and judicialpriority should be accorded to Wakf matters in order to improve themanagement of about five lakh properties across India. The Chairmanand Members of the State Wakf Boards can be selected from a list of



eminent persons in each state. The Government should create a newcadre of officers with knowledge of Islamic law to deal with the specificaffairs of the Wakfs efficiently. A National Wakf Development Corporationand State Corporations should be established. The lease period of Wakf properties may be increased up to 30 years where the property is usedfor education, health care and other purposes consistent with the objectsof the Wakf provided the lessee is a registered society or a registeredtrust doing charity work. Wakf properties should be exempted from RentControl Act and Land Acquisition Act. Wakf Tribunal should be manned byfull time presiding officers appointed exclusively for Wakf purposes. ThePublic Premises Eviction Act should be applied to remove encroachmentsfrom Wakf properties. Failure on the part of the state and statutorybodies entrusted with safeguarding Wakf properties has caused disquietin the Muslim community.

Recommendations

o The Muslim community exhibits deficits and deprivation in

practically all dimensions of development.



o

o Mechanisms to ensure equity and equality of opportunity to

bring about inclusion should be such that diversity is achieved andat the same time the perception of discrimination is eliminated.



o Creation of a National Data Bank (NDB) where all relevant data for

various Socio Religious Communities are maintained has beenrecommended along with an autonomous Assessment andMonitoring Authority to evaluate the extent of developmentbenefits which accrue to different Socio Religious Communitiesthrough various programmes.

o An Equal Opportunity Commission should be constituted to look

into the grievances of the deprived groups.

o A carefully conceived nomination procedure should be worked out

to increase inclusiveness in governance.

o The Committee has recommended elimination of the anomalies

with respect to reserved constituencies under the delimitationscheme.

o The idea of providing certain incentives to a diversity index should

be explored.

o Incentives can be related to this index so as to ensure equal

opportunities to all socio religious communities in the fields of education, governance, private employment and housing.

o State functionaries should be sensitive to the need to have

diversity and the problems associated with social exclusion.



o A process of evaluating the content of the school textbooks needs

to be initiated and institutionalized.

o The UGC should evolve a system where part of the allocation to

colleges and universities is linked to the diversity in the student

population.

o To facilitate admissions to the most backward amongst all the socio

religious communities in the regular universities and autonomouscolleges, alternate admission criteria need to be evolved.

o Providing hostel facilities at reasonable costs for students from

minorities must be taken up on a priority basis.

o Teacher training should be compulsory ensuring in its curriculum

the components which introduce the importance of diversity and

plurality.

o The teachers should be sensitized towards the needs and

aspirations of Muslims and other marginalized communities.

o The states should run Urdu medium schools.

o Work out mechanisms whereby Madarsas can be linked with a

higher secondary school board so that students wanting to shift toa regular mainstream education can do so after having passed froma Madarsa.

o Recognition of the Madarsa degrees for eligibility in competitiveexaminations is desirable.

o The Committee recommended promoting and enhancing access to

Muslims in Priority Sector Bank Advances.

o The real need is of policy initiatives that improve the participation

and share of the Minorities, particularly Muslims in the business of regular commercial banks.

o The community should be represented on interview panels and

Boards.

o The underprivileged should be helped to utilize new opportunities in

its high growth phase through skill development and education.

o Provide financial and other support to initiatives built around

occupations where Muslims are concentrated and have growthpotential.

summary of sachar report on status of indian muslims

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