Rural West Bengal has the most number of households which depend on begging as the main source of income, according to the recently released Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 report.
In Bengal, begging is the main source of income for 1.26 per cent of the rural households. This is considerably higher than the national average of 0.37 percent.
Among 1,57,56,852 rural households in the State, the main source of income for 19,7818 households is begging. In this regard, Bengal was followed by Assam (0.70 per cent) and Odisha 0.63 per cent.
Experts, however, were divided over the implications of the data. Whereas V. Ramaswami, an expert on poverty and livelihood, cautioned against taking the data at its face value, Saswati Ghosh, professor of economics at a city college, said that the failure of the previous and current State Governments in employment generation was the key reason for it.
Mr. Ramaswami said that it would not be correct to directly link begging with destitution as begging was often regarded by many as a comparatively easy profession. “Begging and destitution are not the same. Begging is a profession that is easier than any other profession,” he told The Hindu on Sunday.
Pointing out that as far as cost of living was concerned Bengal was one of cheapest States, Mr. Ramaswami said that there was no particular factor which would put rural Bengal ahead of other States in this regard.
“Generally, in most parts of rural Bengal, villagers will report that they are definitely well off than they were in the past,” said Mr. Ramaswamy.
According to Ms. Ghosh, one of the main reasons behind rural Bengal occupying the top slot in terms of households dependent on begging was poor employment generation. She said that the majority of girls trafficked from Bengal or working as domestic helps in North India were from rural Bengal and closed tea gardens. “This shows the severe lack of employment generation in the State,” said Ms. Ghosh.
She also cited the “politicisation” of the delivery mechanism of social welfare schemes as a key factor in this regard. As a result the benefits of these welfare schemes were not reaching genuine recipients.
As for the State’s performance in terms of schemes where it had to share the expenditure with the Centre, Ms. Ghosh said whether it was during the (Trinamool Congress government) or the previous (Left Front Government), Bengal’s performance cut a sorry picture.
“Due to the poor fiscal condition of the State, the government was not able to share the expenditure of social welfare schemes. So the Census data does surprise me at all,” she said.