NCBC on Sub-categorisation of OBCs

In News: The National Commission for Backward Classes is in favour of four sub-categories of Other Backward Classes which is in compliance with the recommendation of the Justice Rohini Commission.

Background

• The Justice Rohini Commission was constituted on October 2, 2017 but has been given several extensions since then. Now, the commission will be submitting the report by July 2021.
  • The commission is tasked to sort out a mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters for sub-categorisation within such OBCs and taking up the exercise of identifying castes, sub-castes and communities and classifying them into respective sub-categories.
  • Article 340 deals with the appointment of a commission to investigate the conditions of backward classes.
• In 2015, the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) had recommended that OBCs should be categorised into extremely backward classes, more backward classes and backward classes.
• In 2020, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court opened the legal debate on sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for reservation.
• The debate arises out of the perception that only a few affluent communities among the over 2,600 included in the central list of OBCs have secured a major part of this 27 per cent quota.

Need for Sub-Categorisation

• No uniform benefits: The relatively rich and dominant sections among the backward castes have tended to take up a disproportionately larger share of the reservation pie.
• Upper strata have Lion’s share: Presently, half of these 1,900-odd castes have availed less than three per cent of reservation in jobs and education, and the rest availed zero benefits during the last five years.
  • For Example- On the one hand, there are powerful land-owning farming communities like Jats, Yadavs, Kurmis who are availing benefits and on the other hand there are  large number of numerically small peasant and allied communities such as fishworkers and herdsmen who have little or no land holdings.
• Five-year data on OBC quota implementation in central jobs and higher educational institutions showed that a very small section has cornered the lion’s share.
• Recommendations in this favour: The National Commission for Backward Classes had recommended sub-categorisation in 2011 and the Standing committee too had recommended this.
• Sub-categorisation is a very simple way of addressing this inequality within the OBCs.

Challenges

• Political issue: It is likely to hurt the dominant OBC groups. The regional parties championing the interests of dominant OBC castes are likely to oppose such sub-categorisation.
  • An earlier attempt to provide sub-quotas for OBCs in Andhra Pradesh was stalled by courts on the ground that religion-based quota is not permitted.
• Vote-bank politics has a lot to do with the prioritising of caste-based categorisation over income-based differentiation to identify reservation beneficiaries.

Way Forward

• The sub-categorisation will lead to beneficial results only if the following conditions are first fulfilled:
  • One, enumerate the OBCs and make OBC quotas proportional to their population.
  • Two, ensure that the OBC reservations are implemented properly at all levels and censure the institutions not doing so.
  • Three, increase the number of jobs available to people in the public sector.
  • And four, overhaul the roster system, plug all the loopholes in it and make sure the SC/ST/OBCs get the number of seats they are entitled to.

Source- IE