Sachar Committee Report

The Prime Minister has constituted a High Level Committee, headed by Rajindar Sachar, to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community of India in 2005. 

The Committee's mandate was to: 

(a) Obtain relevant information and conduct a literature survey on the relative social, economic an educational status of Muslims in India at the state, regional and district levels;
(b) determine the level of their socio-economic development; 
(c) determine the relative share in public and private sector employment; 
(d) determine the proportion of OBCs from Muslim community in the total OBC population in various states, 
(e) Determine access to education and health services, municipal infrastructure and bank credit provided by Government/ public sector entities.

Major findings of the report:

Literacy 

The literacy rate for Muslims in 2001 was, according to the Committee’s findings, far below the national average. The difference between the two rates was greater in urban areas than in rural areas. For women, too, the gap was greater in the urban areas.

When compared to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes the growth in literacy for Muslims was lower than for the former. The female urban enrolment in literacy ratio for the SCs/STs was 40 per cent in 1965 that rose to 83 per cent in 2001. The equivalent rate for Muslims—that was considerably higher in 1965 (52 per cent)—recorded a figure of 80 per cent, lower than the figure for the SCs / STs.

According to the Sachar Committee’s findings, 25 per cent of Muslim children in the 6-14 age-group either never went to school or else dropped out at some stage.

The disparity in Graduate Attainment Rates between Muslims and other categories has been widening since the 1970s in urban and rural areas. According to the Sachar Committee only one out of 25 undergraduate students and one out of 50 post-graduate students in ‘premier colleges’ are Muslims. 

An important cause for the low level of attainment of Muslims in education is the dearth of facilities for teaching Urdu and other subjects through the medium of Urdu (mother tongue) in lower classes.

Employment 

Muslims have a considerably lower representation in jobs in the government including those in the Public Sector Undertakings compared to other SRCs. According to these findings, in no State of the country the level of Muslim employment is proportionate to their percentage in the population.

The Sachar Committee observes that the low aggregate work participation ratios for Muslims are ‘essentially’ due to the much lower participation in economic activity by the women of the community. Also, a large number of Muslim women who are engaged in work do so from their homes rather than in offices or factories. 

Population

According to the 2001 Census, the Muslim population of India was 138 million (13.4 per cent of the total population).  The period 1991-2001 showed a decline in the growth rate of Muslims in most States. According to the Committee’s findings, the Muslim population shows an increasingly better sex ratio compared to other Socio-Religious Categories. Infant mortality among Muslims is slightly lower than the average. Life expectancy in the community is slightly higher (by one year) than the average.

Poverty

The Committee has found that substantially large proportions of Muslim households in urban areas are in the less than Rs 500 expenditure bracket. The Committee has observed that the inequality is higher in urban areas compared to rural areas in most States. Poverty leads to neglect, or the other way round: the Committee found a “significant inverse association” between the proportion of Muslim population and educational and other infrastructure in small villages. Areas of Muslim concentration are, somehow, not well served with pucca approach roads and local bus stops.

Major recommendations of the Committee are: 
a) Set up an Equal Opportunity Commission to look into grievances of deprivedgroups like minorities. 
b) Provide legal mechanism to address complaints of discrimination against minorities in matters of employment, housing, schooling and obtaining bank loans.
c) Initiate and institutionalise a process of evaluating contents of textbooks to purge them of explicit and implicit material that may impart inappropriate social values, especially religious intolerance. 
d) Create a National Data Bank (NDB) where all relevant data for various socio-religious categories are maintained. 
e) Set up an autonomous assessment and monitoring authority to evaluate the extent of development benefits. 
f) Encourage the University Grants Commission to evolve a system where part of allocation to colleges and universities is linked to diversity in student population. 
g) Facilitate admissions to the most backward amongst all socio-religious categories in regular universities and autonomous colleges and evolving alternate admission criteria 
h) Provide financial and other support to initiatives built around occupations where Muslims are concentrated and that have growth potential. 
i) Increase employment share of Muslims, particularly where there is great deal of public dealing. Working out mechanisms to link madarsas with higher secondary school board. 
j) Recognise degrees from madarsas for eligibility in defence, civil and banking examinations. 
k) Promote and enhancing access to Muslims in ‘Priority Sector Advances’. 
l) Include in teacher training components that introduce importance of diversity and plurality and sensitising teachers towards needs and aspirations of Muslims and other marginalised communities. 
m) Open high quality Urdu medium schools wherever they are in demand and ensuring high quality textbooks for students in the Urdu language. 
n) Improve participation and share of minorities, particularly Muslims, in business of regular commercial banks. 
o) Set up a national Wakf development corporation with a revolving corpus fund of Rs 500 crore and Create new cadre to deal with specific Wakf affairs.