Ten years since Sachar report, Muslims still 3 per cent in IAS, IPS

Mumbai: Among its various recommendation for the welfare of Muslims, the Sachar Committee had stressed the need for increasing the share of Muslims in IAS and IPS. Ten years on, the share of Muslims among IAS officers has risen marginally while that among IPS officers has fallen.

The Sachar Committee report submitted in November 2006 had shown that in IPS, there were 128 Muslims, or 4 per cent, among the 3,209 officers serving then. As of January 2016, there are 120 Muslim officers, or 3.19 per cent of the 3,754 serving IPS officers.

An individual is absorbed into the Union civil services cadre in either of two ways: by clearing UPSC or by being promoted from the state civil service.

What has dropped significantly is the share of Muslims among IPS officers who have been promoted to IPS from the state cadre. Seven per cent in 2006, this had fallen to 3.82 per cent in January 2016. Out of 912 officers promoted to IPS from the state cadre, the Sachar report listed 65 Muslims. In 2016, there were 44 Muslims among the 1,150 IPS promotees.

Among IPS officers who took the UPSC route, the share of Muslims has risen. At the time of the Sachar report, there were 63 Muslim officers who made up 2.7 per cent of the 2,297 directly recruited IPS officers. That share is now 2.91 per cent, with 76 Muslims among the 2,604 directly recruited officers.

The share of Muslims in IAS, meanwhile, has improved slightly, from 3 per cent at the time of the Sachar report to 3.32 per cent as of January 2016— 164 Muslims in a total of 4,926 serving IAS officers.

Of these, 96 are direct recruits, or 2.7 per cent of the 3,511 Indians who cracked UPSC. This share was 2.3 per cent of 2006.

“The share of Muslims, who make up over 14 per cent of the population, in administrative services is very poor,” said Dr Amitabh Kundu who headed the post-Sachar evaluation committee. “A truer test of the disparity would be to see the total number of people who are applying for these posts. Our estimates suggest that the number [Muslims among all applicants] is in the region of 8 per cent.”

Of the 172 Muslim direct recruits to the two services, 48 are from UP, which is followed by Bihar with 34 and J&K with 22.

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