HYDERABAD: About 20 per cent of people belonging to Scheduled Castes have no access to ration cards, even as 28 per cent of them depend on the Public Distribution System (PDS) for rice, the Telangana Social Development Report (TSDR) 2017 disclosed, here on Friday.
The report was formulated by the Southern Regional Centre of the Council for Social Development (CSD). Experts said that this report can serve as the basis for re-orienting interventions and policies which the Telangana Government has been aiming for.
The State became the first state to formulate the Telangana Social Development Report (TSDR) 2017. The CSD in Delhi has been formulating reports at the national level since 2006 biennially and a total of six social development reports have been published so far.
The report was released by finance and civil supplies minister Eatala Rajender on Friday. The TSDR 2017 is based on data from before Telangana acheived statehood. “The report has been created based on inputs from 2011 to 2014 reaggregating the 10 districts of Telangana. We are looking at it as a pilot report and we can surely expand on the themes,” said Kalpana Kannabiran, director, CSD. The team headed by Kannabiran took two years to put the report together and has been co-edited by K Jeyaranjan, Padmini Swaminathan along with Kannabiran.
Prof Muchkund Dubey, president, CSD expressed optimism, saying, “Hopefully, it will aid in moving towards removing discrimination.”
Immediate takeaways
Faster decline in fertility in the state compared to rest of India
While sex ratio has increased from 971 to 988 per 1,000 males, child sex ratio has dropped from 947 to 933 per 1,000 boys
Hyd dist has worst child sex ratio after Nalgonda, Warangal and M’nagar
Child marriages are most prevalent in Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts
Access to land is lowest for SCs
75 per cent of land holdings for SCs is below one hectare
Low access to institutional credit for SCs and STs
SCs in rural areas and STs in urban areas have the lowest number of bank accounts