Castes and Scheduled Tribes P Hanumantha Rayappa Deepak Grover sectionstemptsThis p of madeaper the by attempts to community, government study the particularly to improve problem of employment and the scheduled castes and their living and working unemp scheduled conditions. loyment tribes, and among the the various weaker at- It begins with a brief socio-economic and demographic profile of the SC and ST population and is followed, in Section II, by an account of their condition in work as well as in unemployment. Section III lists various schemes designed to ameliorate their living and working conditions and also attempts an eva luation of these schemes. This section mainly focuses on employmentskill formation and response and non-response aspects. The last section strategies for providing employmentI Socio-Econamic and Demographic Profile That main distinguishing characteristics of the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes are their rurality, illiteracy, economic backwardness (lower income, higher incidence of indebtedness, fewer assets, etc) and social retardation (low status, disabilities, etc). The same characteristics are prevalent among the general population also but they are more, prominent in the case of scheduled groups. These two groups, the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes, constitute the 'core' among the weaker sections in India. However, it is indeed difficult to Identify the weaker sections as they are spread over all areas, occupations and social groups.1 The number of persons belonging to scheduled castes was enumerated to be 80 million (about 15 per cent of the total population) and the number onging to scheduled tribes was 38 million (about 7 per cent) in 1971.2' Nearly 88 per cent of the scheduled caste population and 97 per cent of scheduled tribe population lived in rural areas in 1971 as against 77 per cent among the scheduled population in the country.3 Between the two, the scheduled castes are more evenly spread over, the country. The scheduled tribes are more secluded and mostly live in inaccessible hill, forest, desert areas or near the sea.
