Sachar Committee

A committee headed by Justice Rajindar Sachar was formed in 2005 to look into the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim Community of the country. It submitted its report in 2006 with the following observations and recommendations:

Observations

• The population of Muslim Community increased from 10.7% in 1961 to 13.4% in 2001.
• Literacy rate amongst Muslims was 59.1% as per 2001 census (As per the reply in Lok Sabha, the literacy rate among Muslims showed the largest increase of 9.4 percentage points, from 59.1% in 2001 to 68.5% in 2011).
• Only 3% of Muslim children among the school going age go to Madarsas. Instead, many Muslim children are enrolled in Maktabs, which provide supplementary religious education in addition to enrolment in public schools.
• According to the 2001 Census, 7% of the population aged 20 years and above are graduates or hold diplomas, while only 4% among the Muslim population does.
• The Committee Report notes that the gap between Muslims and other Socio Religious Categories (SRCs) increases as the level of education increases, and that unemployment rates among Muslim graduates is the highest among SRCs both among the poor and the non-poor.
• Participation of Muslim salaried workers in both the public and private sectors is quite low (as is true for SCs/STs), and the average salary of Muslim workers is lower than others (possibly, as more Muslims are in inferior jobs).
• There is relatively high share of Muslim workers engaged in self-employment activity.
• Muslims face fairly high levels of poverty. Their conditions on the whole are only slightly better than those of SCs/STS, though slightly worse in urban areas. According to NSSO data, overall 22.7% of India’s population was poor in 2004-05 (251 million people), with SC/STs together as the worst off (at 35%), followed by Muslims at 31%.

Recommendations

• Setting up an Equal Opportunity Commission to look into grievances of deprived groups like minorities.
• Providing legal mechanism for addressing complaints of discrimination against minorities in matters of employment, housing, schooling and obtaining bank loans.
• Establishing a delimitation procedure that does not reserve constituencies with high minority population for SCs.
• Creating a National Data Bank (NDB) where all relevant data for various socio-religious categories are maintained.
• Setting up an autonomous assessment and monitoring authority to evaluate the extent of development benefits.
• Encouraging the University Grants Commission to evolve a system where part of allocation to colleges and universities is linked to diversity in student population.
• Facilitating admissions to the most backward amongst all socio-religious categories in regular universities and autonomous colleges and evolving alternate admission criteria.
• Providing financial and other support to initiatives built around occupations where Muslims are concentrated and that have growth potential.
• 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.
• Improving teacher training component to introduce importance of diversity and plurality and sensitizing teachers towards needs and aspirations of Muslims and other marginalized communities.
• Set up a National Waqf Development Corporation with a revolving corpus fund of Rs 500 crore. Create new cadre to deal with specific Waqf affairs.

Out of 76 recommendations, government accepted 72 recommendations, 3 were withheld for time being and one was rejected.