JKSEBCC gets final extension of 6 months
*Number of castes up, RBA issues to be decided now
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Feb 23: Percentage for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Government jobs and educational institutions is close to finalization as the Government today extended the term of J&K Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission (JKSEBCC) for another six months and called upon the Panel to submit final recommendations in the extended term.
As number of castes included in the OBCs has gone up to 46, the Commission will examine requests for inclusion of more castes besides giving final view on the areas to be included or excluded as Backward.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs today issued an order granting further extension of six months to the JKSEBCC beyond March 17.
“The Commission shall complete the task within the stipulated period of time and submit final recommendations in the matter,’’ the Law Department order said.
Headed by Justice (Retired) GD Sharma, the Commission comprised senior retired bureaucrat and PSC Member Rup Lal Bharti and Retired IPS officer Munir Khan. The Panel was set up in March 2020.
Asserting that the Commission and the Government are working on final figure of reservation to be granted to the OBCs, sources said it could be between 12 to 14 percent though a final call is yet to be taken.
“The Government is taking into account population of OBCs, new castes added to the list and various other factors including keeping the reservation within 50 percent limit before finalizing the percentage for OBCs,’’ they added.
The OBCs were denied reservations in Jammu and Kashmir. However, Other Social Castes (OSCs) were given four percent reservation in Government jobs and educational institutions. The OSC category will be deleted after inclusion of OBCs in the reservation list.
As per the sources, the percentage fixed for OBCs in Government jobs and educational institutions may also be considered in Panchayat and Municipal elections.
The Parliament had passed the bills for granting reservation to OBCs in Government jobs and educational institutions besides Panchayats and Municipalities. Their reservation has already come into effect.
“Number of the castes included in the list of OBCs has already touched 46. However, the Commission is receiving more requests from the castes for inclusion in the list. It can recommend inclusion of more castes if found genuine based on the criteria fixed for the purpose,” the sources said.
They added that another major task of the Commission which is now pending is finalization of Backward Areas and percentage of reservation for them.
It may be mentioned here that inclusion of Pahari Ethnic tribe, Paddari tribe, Koli & Gadda Brahmins in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category was also recommended by the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission.
RBA category had 20 percent reservation in Jammu and Kashmir which was later brought down to 10 percent following uproar that influential persons including politicians have got included their villages in the RBA category to avail benefits of reservation for their kin in Government jobs and educational institutions.
The Commission had invited representations from people in support of their claims for inclusion of their areas as backward. It has already received large number of claims from the people for inclusion as RBA and is studying all of them based on criteria fixed for declaration of any area as backward.
As per the sources, a number of villages which were earlier declared as backward, have developed over the years as review of the areas wasn’t carried out for past quite some time.
The Commission is likely to recommend exclusion of such villages from the list of backward. In their place, it could include the villages which are genuinely backward but hadn’t been included in the list of RBA.
Reservation of RBA could stay around 10 percent, the sources said.
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