Data error makes Sikhs most jobless in Indian cities

A statistical flaw has earned the Sikh community the dubious distinction of being most unemployed religious group in Indian cities. The percentage of Sikhs whos were unemployed in urban areas in 2004-05 increased to 6.1% in 2009-10. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jul 29, 2013, 03:39:03 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A statistical flaw has earned the Sikh community the dubious distinction of being most unemployed religious group in Indian cities.

The latest National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) survey had said that unemployment had risen among Sikhs in urban areas between 2004-05 and 2009-10 even though it dropped for all other religious groups.

Around 4.6% of Sikhs were unemployed in urban areas in 2004-05. The percentage increased to 6.1% in 2009-10.

However, during the same period the unemployment rate for Hindus and Muslims fell by one percentage point. The maximum fall was witnessed for Christians, whose unemployment rate fell from 8.6% to 2.9% between 2004-05 and 2009-10.

The NSSO admitted that there can be a flaw in the estimation as the sample size for unemployed persons among Sikh community was very low as compared to overall worker people ratios (WPRs).

"The estimation of unemployment rate obtained from the surveys are subject to higher margin of sampling fluctuations," the NSSO said in the report released this month, while cautioning researchers about interpreting the data.

The government's statistical arm was able to find only 47 unemployed men and 23 women from Sikh community in cities for 2009-10 survey, much less than the sample for them in 2004-05 survey. For all other religious communities, which witnessed a fall in unemployment the sample size was bigger. In all over 5,100 persons were surveyed of which only 127 were from the Sikh community.

Because of the flaw, the NSSO report says that unemployment rate for Sikhs was highest for both males and females in urban areas. However, in rural areas like all other religious groups the Sikh community witnessed a fall in unemployment rate.

The overall unemployment rate in 2009-10 was 3.4% as compared to 1.6% in rural areas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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