NEW DELHI: Members of scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST) and other backward classes (OBC) are among the most excluded groups when it comes to employment, said the India Exclusion Report 2018-19 released on Tuesday.
People from the historically disadvantaged communities like SCs and STs have a lower chance of securing jobs and their income is likely to be lower as compared to people from the general category, it said.
While dynamic economic growth should reverse traditional faultlines and the underlying social discrimination, the Indian context shows these faultlines have deepened, said the report.
Muslims, youths and women remained among the excluded groups when it came to equal access to employment.
Analysis of NSSO data showed Muslims were the lowest represented in salaried-class employment and women were the largest declining labour force in the country. While their work in households go unrecognised and remain unpaid, they get unequal wages in other sectors.
Though India has a proportionately small but also a large class of professionals due to its large population, it also has a majority of the workforce with low-productivity and low-income work in agriculture and petty production in informal enterprises said the report.
A big push in agriculture, a relook at the industrialisation model, expanding employment guarantee programme in rural and urban areas, ensuring access to health, education, environment and housing, and protection of workers’ rights in the informal sector are the need of the hour, it recommended.
The report also pointed out the need to design a simple tax regime for micro and small enterprises.
While the design of GST aids larger firms with a unified market, forced formalisation of small enterprises through GST promotes inequality, it said.
With the informal sector suffering the setbacks of demonetisation and GST, it is likely the share of the formal sector will increase at the cost of the informal sector over a period of time.