January February 2007 
Year 13    No.122

The Rajindar Sachar Committee Report


Access to Infrastructure

1. Minorities and Development

In this chapter an attempt is made to investigate if Muslims are at a relatively higher disadvantage than other SRCs. Social infrastructure has reference to primary and elementary schools, health dispensaries etc.; physical infrastructure refers to services such as electricity, piped water, roads and bus service, post and communications etc.

In determining access (or lack of it) to infrastructure, three broad dimensions of social and physical infrastructure have to be taken into account—’presence’, ‘access’ and ‘utilization’. Access also depends upon the place of residence. Lack of access can emerge either due to the absence of social and/or physical infrastructure, or through inaccessibility to such facilities of SRCs even when they are present.

2. Village Amenities

The Census of India provides information on various amenities available in each village. But since distribution of population by religion is not available at the village level, one cannot find out if villages of Muslim concentration get amenities at par with other villages. However, honouring a request of the Committee, the Census of India undertook special cross-tabulations of villages according to the share of their Muslim population (Muslim population as percent of total village population) and the availability of specified amenities. This has facilitated an examination of whether the availability of an amenity in a village is correlated with its share of the Muslim population.

2.1. National Level Findings

Highlights: The proportion of villages with educational facilities falls from 88% in villages with a low Muslim share in the population to 85% in villages with a high Muslim share. In larger villages, the differences are small as practically all villages with a population of over 2,000 have an educational institution. But as the size of village becomes small and the share of Muslims increases one finds a drop in the presence of primary and elementary schools. Thus, there is a clear and significant inverse correlation between the proportion of the Muslim population and the availability of educational infrastructure in small villages. While about 82% of small villages with less than 10% Muslims have educational institutions, this proportion decreases to 69% in villages with a substantial Muslim population.

The aggregate picture about medical facilities is not very clear—villages with 10-39% Muslims are better off as compared to villages with a lower or higher share of Muslim population. However, when disaggregated by village size, a clearer pattern emerges. It shows a fall in the availability of medical facilities with the rise in the proportion of Muslims, especially in larger villages. A similar but sharper pattern can be seen with respect to post/telegraph offices. While the aggregate picture again shows that villages with 10-39% of Muslims are better served, disaggregative analysis indicates that the availability of such facilities declines sharply with the increase in the share of Muslim population.

Muslim concentration villages are not well served with pucca approach roads and local bus stops. This trend gets worse as the village size increases. Having an all-weather road and getting a public bus visiting the village has a strong bearing on the kind of economic activity one can undertake. As Muslims are also less landed and more likely to be artisans, casual workers and small traders, physical mobility provided by roads and bus services will open up economic opportunities to them. The data suggest that they are at a significant disadvantage on this count.

2.2. State Level Differentials

The highlights of the state-level analysis on different types of facilities are discussed below:

(a) Educational facilities: More than 1,000 Muslim-concentration villages in West Bengal and Bihar do not have any educational institutions; in Uttar Pradesh, this figure is 1,943. The situation is worse in small villages. The proportion of Muslim concentration villages (in all three size classes) with educational facilities is lower than the total proportion of villages that have such facilities. This is particularly so in the case of smaller villages where the differential is alarmingly high. This would indicate that Muslim concentration villages, especially smaller ones, lack access to educational institutions.

(b) Medical facilities: The situation is poor with respect to medical facilities. More than 16% of the villages without medical facilities are located in Muslim concentration areas. Almost 2,000 Muslim concentration villages in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir, more than 3,000 villages in West Bengal and Bihar, and above 5,000 villages in Uttar Pradesh are without any medical facilities. In most of the states, the proportion of Muslim concentration villages with medical facilities is somewhat lower than the proportion of all villages with such facilities, indicating a bias in public services provisioning in Muslim concentration areas.

(c) Post and Telegraph facilities: A large number of Muslim concentration villages in states like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand lack post and telegraph facilities.

(d) Pucca Approach Roads and Bus Stops: The proportion of Muslim concentration villages that have a pucca approach road is again lower than the corresponding estimate for all villages. The situation with respect to availability of bus stops is of particular concern in Muslim concentration villages of states like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand (small villages), West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand (medium villages) and Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand (large villages).

Overall, the progress in creating infrastructural facilities is inadequate in all villages. This can be seen from the low proportion of villages that have infrastructural facilities. The situation is of particular concern regarding medical facilities. There is no strong indication that Muslim concentration villages have less infrastructural facilities. However, the provisioning of infrastructure in states with substantial Muslim concentration like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam and Jharkhand is a matter of concern. The concentration of Muslims in states lacking infrastructural facilities implies that a large proportion of the Community is without access to basic services.

3. Living Conditions

3.1 House and Hygiene

The focus here is on basic aspects of housing conditions: the kind of house, sanitation, fuel for cooking and source of lighting.

Depending on the building materials used, houses are classified as pucca, semi-pucca and kutcha. In both urban and rural areas, the proportion of Muslim households living in pucca houses is lower than the total population. Muslims are better off compared to OBCs and SCs/STs, though the proportion of Muslims in pucca houses is lower than the proportion of H-General (Hindu-General) in both areas.

An important requirement for sanitation is the presence of toilet facilities. Almost half the Muslim households in India lack access to toilets; this proportion is higher in rural areas. Even in urban areas about one in every seven Muslim households lacks toilet facilities. However, the position of Muslims is better than that of SCs/STs and OBCs. About one in every five Muslim households has flush toilets of its own. This proportion is marginally better than that of the Indian population. Overall, the access of Muslims to toilet facilities is low, but better than that of both SCs/STs and OBCs. This may be because of greater Muslim concern for privacy, especially amongst women.

3.2 Household Electrification and Availability of

Tap Water Electrification

It is clear that the Muslims and the SCs/STs live in larger numbers in villages that are categorized as least electrified. Their share declines as the level of village electrification increases. On the other hand, the trend is the opposite for the H-General category whose share increases as the village electrification increases. The share of OBCs does not show a clear relationship with levels of village electrification. A comparison of these estimates from the NSSO 61st Round data reconfirms the sharp differential access according to SRCs.

The Census data also suggests that the use of electricity for lighting is less among Muslims than the all-India average. The disadvantage is quite large in Muslim concentrated villages; the share of villages with no electricity increases substantially as the size of the village falls and the share of Muslim population rises.

Piped Potable Water

The 60th Round NSSO provides data on household use of tap water by place of residence. As expected, urban areas are better served with tap water and between 60 and 70 percent households from across SRCs used water from this source with small variations amongst them. But the scenario is different in rural areas, as only about one quarter of all households have access to tap water. But Muslims have the least access compared to all other SRCs. Even the NCAER’s Human Development Report (NCAER, 1999) showed similar relative levels more than a decade ago suggesting nothing much has happened to improve the provisioning of tap water on the one hand and to reduce the relative differential accesses between the SRCs. This finding is consistent with the Census data relating to the distribution of villages for other items of infrastructure that also shows a deficit in Muslim concentration villages.

3.3 Fuel Use for Domestic Purposes

Clean fuel for cooking is important for health. It is a serious consideration for women who, in most cases, are burdened with the task of cooking.

NFHS data provides the pattern of use of modern fuels for urban and rural areas separately for the year 1998-99. Only 6% have reported the use of clean fuel in villages and about 48% in urban areas. Muslim households are poorly placed in this respect; the disparity is especially wide in urban areas.

An examination of Census 2001 data suggests that just about 60% of all rural households do not use any of the modern fuels such as LPG, electricity or even kerosene. The non-use of these fuels for cooking increases as the share of Muslims increases, more so when the village size increases as well.

The overall picture in living conditions is a mixed one. The Muslim population seems to be close to average in terms of housing structure and better placed in terms of toilet facilities; it ranks poorly in water availability, electrification and cooking fuel facilities. Apparently, privacy seems to be given a higher priority by Muslims than others and this explains the relatively better availability of toilets in Muslim households. Generally, Muslim households are not as well equipped as H-General or Other minorities, but as good as or better than H-OBCs and SCs/STs.

4. Qualitative Study and Observations

In order to supplement data from secondary sources, the Committee commissioned studies in selected urban and rural localities. The objective was to probe the following questions:

-- How do the Muslim concentration localities compare with other localities in terms of the availability of basic infrastructure such as schools, health centres, banks, roads, electricity and potable water?

-- Whether Muslims residing in areas with a non-Muslim majority have equal access to such facilities?

-- Is the pattern uniform in the cities and the villages or is there a perceptible difference? Similarly, does the pattern vary across states?

Surveys were conducted in three South Indian states (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu), and in Lucknow and its surrounding regions. In the southern states, samples were drawn from two urban localities - one predominantly Muslim and the other where Muslims were few in number. A survey was undertaken on similar lines in two rural areas.

The result of these surveys suggest regional patterns while analysing Muslim inhabited areas and their access to basic amenities and infrastructure. In this context, the three southern states that were studied showed only marginal deprivation in the Muslim concentration areas. Localities inhabited by comparable economic classes generally had similar living standards.

However, the study of the Muslim concentration localities of Lucknow and its adjoining areas showed a perceptible difference. Compared to the Muslim majority areas, the areas inhabiting fewer Muslims had better roads, sewage and drainage, and water supply. Often there was a school and a health centre which were absent in areas where Muslims of similar economic background had a large share in population. For instance, a Hindu dominated urban slum in Lucknow had better quality roads, drainage system, sanitation, water supply and sewage disposal compared to another slum populated largely by Muslims.


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