STATE OF SCs, STs, AND OBCs

New Delhi, 27 October 2006

NEW DELHI, October 28 (INFA): The latest report, called “Round” of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSC) has dealt with an interesting theme: household assets-holding, indebtedness, borrowing and repayments of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Classes (OBCs).

It has been noticed that most of them carry the principal burden of the rural-agricultural economy as exemplified by the numbers.  Among the STs in rural India, 70 out of 100 households were cultivators and another 15 agricultural labour.

Among the SC households, about half were cultivators and the other half were agricultural labour.

Overall 60 out of 100 were cultivator households. A comparative look at their asset-holding, indebtedness, access to institutional credit illustrates why they are classed as underprivileged.

In the rural areas, about two-thirds of all household assets were in the form of land while the share of land among all types of assets for SC and ST households was only a little more than one third. That is the distance between the privileged and the underprivileged.

The average value of the assets owned by a household in the rural sector was Rs.1.37 lakh for STs and Rs.1.26 lakh for SCs, compared with Rs.4.3 lakh for others.

In general, one fifth of the rural households were in debt. About 59 per cent of the debt of rural ST households was incurred for farm-related work and 25 per cent for household expenditure.

Only 26 per cent of the debt of rural SC households was for farm-related work, while 51 per cent was for household expenditure.  Thus even among STs and SCs the latter incurred 100 per cent more debt than STs for consumption.

Only a small proportion (less than 13 per cent) of SC and OBC households has access to institutional agencies for credit. About 87 per cent are in the bag of the money lender.

The incidence of repayments of loans to non-institutional agencies (which charge exorbitant rates of interest) was higher as compared to the institutional agencies.

How is that despite this continuous flow of NSSO data on the desk of the policy-makers, so little has been done to drown the suffix ‘under’ from the underprivileged?

These Rounds are not hooked to fire brigades. The latter are in the control of planners and administrators who live in fire-proof shelters. They see the fire but remain indifferent. ---INFA