National Zakat Survey Report

Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam, and is a religious obligation for all Muslims who meet a particular criteria of wealth. All such Muslims have to voluntarily contribute 2.5% (or 1/40^th) of their savings. This amount is expected to be given for the welfare of the poor and the needy.

Thousands of crores of money gets collected & distributed as Zakat annually in India. Inspite of this huge amount, we do not see a tangible impact on the upliftment of the community. To understand the current practices of Zakat collection, distribution and its impact or the lack of it on the Muslim Community, Association of Muslim Professionals carried out a National Zakat Survey in the month of April 2019.

The idea of this survey was to identify the pain areas which hinder the effective utilization of Zakat and how it can be leveraged in a better and more organized way to improve the socio economic condition of Indian Muslims.

In the Press Conference held in Mumbai on Thursday, 2^nd May 2019, Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP), presented a survey report and its findings. The survey received responses from 4589 respondents from almost 200 cities across India and abroad. The findings were astonishing;

Sample Findings:

30% of the respondents have either No knowledge or can’t say about the Zakat and its benefits.
Overall 40% plus respondents who pay zakat, opined that they are not so confident to correctly calculate zakat.
2/3rd of the people donate less than 20000 rupees of zakat a year, with 30% donating more than 20000 rupees of zakat a year…considering huge population of zakat giver in our community the value of zakat could be in thousands of crores of rupees in a year
More than half the people donate their zakat as per the requirement anytime in the year, with major emphasis of 40% people preferring to pay in the month of Ramzan..
More than 60% of the people donate to same set of individuals every year whereas when asked about whether they have seen changes in the lives of zakat takers, majority of them (55%) mentioned they do not worry about that and just wanted to complete their duty of paying zakat.
More than 75% of the people either donate zakat to their relatives or local zakat seeker/whoever approaches for zakat. Only 15% of the people donate their zakat to Baitul Maal or NGO for organized Charity and 10% plus for Madrasas.
Zakat currently is donated for various purposes with NO specific focus.
When asked about “what should be best way to give zakat”, overall 70% of the people said it should be “Collectively (strategic donation)”.
More than 75% of the people strongly agree that “Collective zakat” has the potential to transform lives of our community if used in an appropriate way.
More than 75% of the people feel that zakat should be used for Education, Economic empowerment & Self-employment.
Overall 94% of the people opined that there should be a mechanism for collective zakat fund management.