WUNRN
WUNRN would like to see Gender Disaggregation on the recent India Census statistics.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/07/new-census-paints-grim-picture-of-inequality-in-india/
INDIA – NEW CENSUS PAINTS GRIM PICTURE OF INEQUALITY IN INDIA - GENDER
An elderly
Indian couple sits outside their ‘home’, a barebones dwelling constructed from
plastic sheeting and scrap material. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS
By Neeta Lal
NEW
DELHI, Jul 14 2015 (IPS) - Despite being Asia’s third-largest economy,
positioning itself as a major geopolitical player under a new nationalist
government, India’s first ever Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC)
paints a grim picture of poverty and deprivation despite billions of dollars
being funneled into state-sponsored welfare schemes.
The
survey, carried out in 640 districts under the aegis of the Rural Development
Ministry, provides comprehensive data on a raft of socio-economic indicators
like occupation, education, religion, caste/tribe status, employment, income,
assets, housing and land owned in individual as well as household categories.
Of the 179
million households covered, nearly half are rural.
Of
these rural households, over 21.53 percent belong to a Scheduled Caste (SC) or
Scheduled Tribe (ST), the traditionally oppressed classes for whom the Indian
constitution provides special provisions to promote and protect their social,
educational and economic interests.
More
than 60 percent of the surveyed rural households qualified as “deprived” on 14 parameters.
In over 51.8 percent of rural families, the main income earners barely manage
to keep their kitchen fires burning by working as manual or casual labourers
making less than 80 dollars per month (four dollars a day).
Further,
just 20 percent of rural households own a vehicle, and only 11 percent own
something as basic as a refrigerator.
The
census also gives a glimpse of rural India weighed down by landlessness and a
lack of non-farm jobs.
Across
the country, 56 percent of households don’t own any land. Few households have a
regular job and an insignificant number are taxpayers. Only 7.3 percent of
households who fall into the scheduled castes category, and only 9.7 percent of
all rural households in total, have a family member with a salaried job.
About
30 percent of those surveyed list themselves as cultivators, and manual casual
labour is the primary source of income for 51.14 percent of households. Just
about 14 percent have non-farm jobs, with the government, public or private
sector.
The
statistics are even bleaker for scheduled castes and tribal households: despite
decades of affirmative action, only 3.96 percent of rural SC households and
4.38 percent of ST households are employed in the government sector.
This
plummets to 2.42 percent for scheduled castes and 1.48 per cent for tribal
communities in the private sector. Fewer than five percent of rural households
pay income tax. Even among rich states, like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and
Maharashtra, this number hovers around the five percent mark.
“The
census is an eye-opener. It clearly demonstrates that the benefits of high
economic growth have not percolated down to large sections of the population
despite billions being funneled into schemes for poverty-alleviation,
‘education for all’ and job-generation,” said Ranjana Kumari, director of the
New Delhi-based Centre for Social Research
What
is most disconcerting, according to Kumari, is that the census figures not only
highlight rampant poverty but also generational poverty.
India’s
latest census reveals a land of paradox, where the largest population of the
world’s poor live in ragged huts, side-by-side with enormous skyscrapers.
“Despite
over six decades of independence, millions still continue to languish in
depressing poverty, deprived of most social benefits like job security,
education and a roof over their heads. Policy makers and economists have been
keeping their eyes closed. Government after government is guilty of this
criminal neglect of the disempowered,” she added.
Activists
point out that despite state-mentored flagship schemes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the education for
all movement aimed at achieving universal elementary education, 23.52 percent
rural families have no literate adult above 25 years.
Fewer
than 10 percent in India advance beyond the higher secondary level in school
and just 3.41 percent of rural households have a family member who is at least
a graduate.
A
state-by-state breakdown of the latest census shows that nearly every second
rural resident (47.5 percent of the rural population) in the northwest state of
Rajasthan – the largest in the country by land area – is illiterate.
Meanwhile,
states like West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand,
Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh account for over 180 million of the over 300
million illiterate people in rural India.
Similarly,
housing for all remains a chimera despite the existence of Indira Awaas Yojana, one
of the biggest and most comprehensive rural housing programmes ever taken up in
the country, which has been in operation since 1985.
The
scheme aims to provide subsidies and cash-assistance to the poor to
construct their own houses. Yet three out of 10 families, according to the
SECC, live in one-room houses, while 22 million households (roughly 100 million
persons or four times the population of Australia) live in homes constructed
from grass, bamboo, plastic or polythene, with nothing but thatched or tin
roofs standing between them and the elements.
The
eastern and central States of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha have the
poorest indicators for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, but even in more
developed southern states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, family incomes are low
and dependence on casual manual labour is high.
The
countryside remains unable to find jobs that can pull families out of poverty
while agriculture remains at subsistence levels, with low mechanisation,
limited irrigation facilities and little access to credit.
The
alarming and all-pervasive poverty, say activists, should alert policy makers
to framing more inclusive policies effectively implemented on ground zero.
“This is a
wake-up call for urgent action on the policy front as the backward castes have
been neglected for far too long,” Dalit activist Paul Divakar told IPS.
“The
SECC demonstrates that economic development of this demographic is not the
government’s priority. These sections continue to lag behind on most human
development indices because of non-implementation of policies and lack of
targeted development related to their social identity.
“A
holistic state intervention is vital for their all-round development,” he
added.
Economists
opine that for a country like India, which holds the paradoxical distinction of
being a rising economy as well as hosting the largest number of the world’s
poor, policies need to be especially nuanced for growth to be equitable.
“Of
India’s 1.2-billion-strong population, a whopping 60 percent are of working
age,” according to Kumari of the Centre for Social Research. “Yet only a small
percentage has been absorbed into the formal workforce. Rural poverty is an
outcome of low productivity, which leads to low incomes.
“We need to create an ecosystem for faster growth of productive jobs outside the agrarian sector. Social protection schemes need to be universalised,” she concluded.