Socioeconomic Status of SCs/STs in India: Upgrading or Degrading?

The socio-economic base of education and employment since ancient times in India was extremely narrow, and the door of education was close for the economically and socially deprived sections of the society. There is a wide inequality in education and employment opportunities between the scheduled and non-scheduled population of India.

The main objective of the paper is to analyze the socio-economic profile i.e. the literacy and educational status of scheduled (scheduled caste and scheduled tribes) compared to non-scheduled population castes in India. In addition to this, study also tries to examine whether socioeconomic status of SC and ST is upgrading or degrading.

Study has used the census and NSSO data to achieved the above the objective. The Indian Census is the most credible source of information on Demography (Population characteristics), Economic Activity, Literacy and Education, Housing & Household Amenities, and many other socio-cultural and demographic data since 1872.

Results show that from census and NSSO data, the status of the SC and ST population is slowly improving in both aspects of education and employment. The pace of development quite slow, but it is a continuous process. The gap among SC&ST and other category is persisting, but it will soon disappear and this can achieved only with proper government policy implementation.