The India Exclusion Report 2016, released by the New Delhi-based Centre for Equity Studies (CES) on Friday, says that fewer jobs were created under the Modi government in 2015 compared to the previous government led by the Congress Party.
Citing Labour Ministry Data, the report says that employment creation in 2015 plummeted to 135,000 jobs compared to 930,000 in 2011. "Yet more than half-way through his (Modi's) tenure, there are almost no jobs available. Job creation has fallen to levels even below those that the preceding UPA governments plunged to," the report says.
The report also says that Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and women, groups that have been traditionally oppressed, continue to be the most excluded from accessing public goods.
The CES looks at four public goods: pensions for the elderly, digital access, agricultural land, and legal justice for undertrials. The rate of landlessness was highest among Dalits, at 57.3% followed by women-headed households at 56.8 percent and Muslims at 52.6%.
Adivasis made up 40 percent displaced by "development activity."
The report also says that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. While post-1990 growth has gone up three times compared to the first four decades after Independence, the rate of poverty reduction slowed down from 0.94% per annum during 1981-1990 to only 0.65% between 1990 and 2005.
Social activist Harsh Mander, who heads CES, told the Hindustan Times, "There is no doubt that lives of people have changed for better because of liberalisation but the promise of poverty eradication still remains to be fulfilled."
"The gains have thrown new concerns of exclusion which needs to be addressed and discussed. In India, pensions cover only 40% of the elderly, landlessness among Dalits and Muslims is highest and these two (legally illiterate) communities are in high proportion in jails," he said.
The report cites National Crime Record Bureau data that shows 65.56 per cent of all under-trials are from SC, ST, OBC communities.
The report also says that "almost 1.063 billion Indians were offline even though India ranks among the top five nations in terms of the total number of Internet users."
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