The Governments plan to devise an index to measure diversity in educational institutions,work,and living places one of the key suggestions made by the Justice Rajinder Sachar committee for uplift of Muslims has hit a roadblock with the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) pointing out several flaws in the report of the expert group . After reviewing the report,submitted last year by the Government-appointed five member expert group,headed by Amitabh Kundu,it is learnt that the CSO has opined that there are a number of weak points in the formulation of the index. In damning remarks,the CSO has said that the report has done little justice to the objective for which it was set up. Apart from pointing out that the formulae suggested by the group for measuring diversity was generalised,the CSO noted that it was flawed conceptually. As far as determining the parameters for identifying the target population,it said the example given in the report was over simplistic and far from reality. It is learnt that the CSO suggested that the index should provide a true picture of society. Besides,the index should not over simplify the situation only for the convenience of calculation. The CSO has raised several technical queries in the formulae suggested by the expert group for calculating the index,sources in the Statistics Ministry said. Pointing out that using the index suggested by the expert group for measuring diversity in housing and employment spheres could be a statistical challenge,the CSO has asked the Minority Affairs Ministry to construct an index at various micro and macro levels using data available on a trial basis. Acting on the recommendations of the Sachar Committee,which had found evidence of community-based discrimination in all social spheres,the Government had set up the expert group with a mandate to provide a diversity index,on the basis of which incentives could be given for better representation of the community in education,housing,employment. The committee,after a years work,suggested that an incentive structure should be built into the system so that those making efforts to meet the goal of increasing diversity are rewarded. It suggested that grants should be given to educational institutions that have higher diversity,besides incentives should be provided to public and private sector enterprises to encourage diversity at work force. The panel recommended incentives to builders for housing complexes that have more diverse residents to promote composite living spaces.
