Assessment to check share of minorities in government workforce in Delhi

The commission had attempted a similar exercise in the last two years in which only eight Delhi government departments, one municipal corporation, the police, the Metro and the commission itself counted among the 13 total participants, records of the commission showed.

All government offices in Delhi, including the police, municipal bodies, PSUs and the Metro have been asked to be a part of an assessment to check the participation of religious minority groups in their workforce, senior government officials have said.

All government offices in Delhi, including the police, municipal bodies, PSUs and the Metro have been asked to be a part of an assessment to check the participation of religious minority groups in their workforce.(Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

The data will be submitted to Delhi Minorities Commission for a report to be prepared later this year. The commission had attempted a similar exercise in the last two years in which only eight Delhi government departments, one municipal corporation, the police, the Metro and the commission itself counted among the 13 total participants, records of the commission showed.

“The data was highly inadequate in reflecting an accurate picture of minority participation in workforce,” said Zafarul Islam Khan, chairperson, Delhi Minorities Commission. He said that this year around 200 departments and agencies are expected to participate in the assessment exercise.

On July 12, the social welfare department of Delhi government issued a circular directing all government offices to participate in the exercise, marking it as “top priority”, said the circular which HT has seen.

“Such a circular has been issued for the first time,” a senior government official said adding, in the previous years, the minorities commission had sent letters to departments individually but this year it is being done only in cases of agencies which do not come under the Delhi government. Such agencies include Delhi Police, Delhi Metro, the three municipal corporations and Delhi Development Authority.

As per the limited data available from assessments carried out in 2017 and 2018, the minorities commission, the department for welfare of SC, ST, OBC and minorities, and the department of factory licencing of the Delhi government were the poorest performers in terms of absolute numbers. Each of them had just one employee belonging to the minority communities. The department of welfare of SC, ST, OBC and Minorities, with 1.12% share of minority participation, also ranked poorest in terms of percentage share.

Explaining the need for a more comprehensive assessment, Khan said, “Accurate data is needed because the scenario is poor. The reason is that there is an inherent bias in the system when it comes to employing people from the minority groups.”

Delhi government officials clarified that there is no quota on the basis of religion for jobs in government offices.

Speaking about the exercise, Delhi social welfare minister Rajendra Pal Gautam said, “Poor representation of minorities in government workforce is a problem across India and it is not restricted to Delhi. Yes, there are certain prejudices and biases that have crept into the system over decades. These prejudices and biases have to end.”

He said, “People from minority groups deserve better representation and more opportunities. It is a priority of our government to ensure that it happens.”

Social scientist Satish Deshpande, however, urged the government to invest in sensitisation and develop preferential policies to compensate for the under-representation of minorities in workforce.

“For a fair assessment, one must look at relative share, which means one has to compare a community’s representation in the workforce with its share in the total population. As far as relative share is concerned, it has been seen that Muslims particularly would tend to be highly under-represented in areas of privilege. It is the formal sector where jobs are stable,” Deshpande said.

For instance, Muslims make up about 12.86% of Delhi’s population, as per the Census 2011. But the communities’ representation in the government jobs, as per the limited data available, is 2.45%.

Government officials pointed out that it might not only because of biases or prejudices that a particular community is not adequately represented in the workforce. They said education plays a pivotal role since for most government jobs a person must at least have passed class 10.

Considering the example of Muslims again, they said as per All India Survey on Higher Education (2016-17) conducted by the ministry of human resource development, Muslims account for meagre 4.9% of students enrolled in higher education. The figure for Delhi, under the same survey, stood at 2.12%.