The Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) population in India according to 1991 census are 13,82,23,277 and 6,77,58,380 respectively, constituting 16.33% and 8.01% of India's total population respectively. The proportion of SC and ST population has increased considerably from 15.8% and 7.8% respectively in 1981. In the Himalayan region the percentage of SC population is 13.49^$ %, which is lower than the national figure while the percentage of ST population (28.16^$ %) is much higher as compared to country's total tribal population. The contribution of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe population of Indian Himalaya is 2.22^$ and 9.46^$ % to the nation's SC and ST population respectively.

Table 6. Scheduled Caste (SC) population: states are ranked according to the size of SC population
 

State	SC population	% of SC population	% share of SC population in India	% share of SC population in Indian Himalaya
HIMACHAL PRADESH	1310296	25.34	0.9480	42.71
UTTAR PRADESH HILLS	989658	16.70	0.7160	32.26
TRIPURA	451116	16.36	0.3264	14.70
WEST BENGAL HILLS	209876	16.15	0.1518	6.84
MANIPUR	37105	2.02	0.0268	1.21
ASSAM HILLS	31909	3.92	0.0231	1.04
SIKKIM	24084	5.93	0.0174	0.79
MEGHALAYA	9072	0.51	0.0066	0.30
ARUNACHAL PRADESH	4052	0.47	0.0029	0.13
MIZORAM	691	0.10	0.0005	0.02
NAGALAND	0	0.00	0.0000	0.00

Table 7. Scheduled Tribe (ST) population: states are ranked according to the size of ST population
 

State	ST population	% of ST population	% share of ST population in India	% share of ST population in Indian Himalaya
MEGHALAYA	1517927	85.53	2.24	23.69
NAGALAND	1060822	87.70	1.57	16.56
TRIPURA	853345	30.95	1.26	13.32
MIZORAM	653565	94.75	0.96	10.20
MANIPUR	632173	34.41	0.93	9.87
ARUNACHAL PRADESH	550351	63.66	0.81	8.59
ASSAM HILLS	440552	54.15	0.65	6.88
HIMACHAL PRADESH	218349	4.22	0.32	3.41
UTTAR PRADESH HILLS	209838	3.54	0.31	3.28
WEST BENGAL HILLS	179153	13.78	0.26	2.80
SIKKIM	90901	22.36	0.13	1.42