NEW DELHI: Among the poorest households, minority religious groups and socially underprivileged communities have gained significantly through schemes focused on providing access to electricity, bank accounts, toilets and mobile phones, a research paper by the economic advisory council to the PM has said and suggested a more focused approach for providing cooking gas connections and water supply.
The paper by EAC-PM member Shamika Ravi – ‘A secular democracy in practice: Objective assessment of amenities programs in India’ –has looked at data from the fourth and fifth rounds of the national family health survey and the 2011 census numbers to construct distinct geographies based on religion. The focus of the study was on the bottom 20% households.
The paper also constructed a variable called ‘target achievement’, which is the ratio of increase in the proportion of households that got access to the amenity in 2019–21, compared with the proportion of households that had the amenity in2015–16, to the proportion of households that did not have access in 2015–16.
“By quantifying changes in the provision of amenities across religions, social groups, and geographies based on faith, this paper challenges a popular perceptionbased narrative that democracy has been declining in India since 2014. In sharp contrast, our results indicate that the government is responsive to the needs of the marginalised section of society irrespective of religion, caste, or place of residence, which is an alternative and more robust indicatorof strengthening democracy in India,” it said.
“Based on a nationally representative sample of more than 1.2 million households across 2015–16 and 2019–21, we do not find any evidence that the government catered only to one community (Hindu majority) or discriminated across households based on districts where one religious community was dominant. With respect to electricity, bank account, mobiles and access to toilets, the gains were widespread across religions and social groups. As amatter of fact, in some instances, minorities have gained more than the majority,” according to the paper.
For instance, in case of access to electricity, while the ‘target achievement’ was 68%, in case of Muslim households, it was 71%.
Similarly, when it came to bank accounts, the paper estimated that against an overall ‘target achievement’ of 73%, for Muslims it was 77% and for OBCs 75%. The achievement in case of Scheduled Castes and Tribes was pegged at over 70%.
