Calcutta, June 12: Shortly before commissioning the survey on the socio-economic status of minorities, Writers’ Buildings had discovered that they were “grossly under-represented” in government jobs.

Figures for the past 10 years show that only one in 30 government jobs routed through the employment exchange goes to a Muslim, though the community forms 25.5 per cent of the state’s population.

The corresponding figure for Christians is even lower, at less than 0.5 per cent.

In contrast, upper caste (non-Scheduled Caste/Tribe or backward classes) Hindus, who constitute 36 per cent of the state’s population, get around 62 per cent of the jobs.

“The survey that the state government has commissioned the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) to conduct will throw some light on why this mismatch is happening,” a labour department official said.

“There are various social and economic issues involved in this and after we get the findings of the survey, the gov- ernment can address these issues and find ways to correct them.”

Even the posts that members of the minority communities occupy in the government are mostly way down in the hierarchy. For instance, in Calcutta police, where Muslims have about 4 per cent of the jobs, most of them are constables.

Former labour minister Mohammed Amin said the situation was “even worse” before and claimed that “it is because of the progressive policies of the Left Front government that the situation has started to improve”.

But he also said the government was “concerned” about the situation.

Former minority affairs minister Mohammad Salim admitted that minorities were under-represented in jobs.

“But it is also true that a new section of educated Muslims has come up and there has been a slight difference in the tally. The government has several schemes and has been helping them financially,” said Salim, now an MP.

He pointed out how the West Bengal Minorities Development and Finance Corporation had been giving loans to the unemployed and students were being provided funds to continue studying.

“The government is trying its best to give due representation to Muslims and ensure there is no discrimination,” Salim added.

During Siddhartha Shankar Ray’s tenure as chief minister (1972-77), the then Congress government had said that each police station would have at least one officer of the rank of sub-inspector from the minority communities.

Ray told The Telegraph today: “I had tried my best to address the problem. It’s a pity that during the past 30 years there has been no development of the minorities in general and the Muslims in particular.”

Gillian Rosemary Hart, a member of the West Bengal Minorities’ Commission, said the position of Christians was “worse”.

“Earlier, there used to be reservation for Anglo-Indians in various departments of the state government, but that has been scrapped,” Hart said. “We are now demanding at least 2 per cent of government jobs for the Christians.”

The study that the government has now asked the ISI to conduct will help assess the minorities’ socio-economic condition, standard of education and lack of employment opportunities. A team led by professor Atish Dasgupta has been assigned the task.