NEW DELHI, Aug 30: The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today approved norms for establishing equivalence of posts in Government and posts in Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and Public Sector Banks for claiming benefit of OBC reservations.
Announcing this, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the move would ”address an issue pending for nearly 24 years” by ensuring that the children of those serving in lower categories in PSUs and other institutions can get the benefit of OBC reservations, on a par with children of people serving in lower categories in Government.
”This will also prevent children of those in senior positions in such institutions, who, owing to absence of equivalence of posts, may have been treated as non Creamy Layer by virtue of wrong interpretation of income standards from cornering government posts reserved for OBCs and denying the genuine non creamy layer candidates a level playing field,” Mr Jaitley said breifing the media after the Cabinet meeting.
The Union Cabinet also approved the increase in the present income criterion from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh per annum for applying the Creamy Layer restriction throughout the country, for excluding Socially Advanced Persons/Sections (Creamy Layer) from the purview of reservation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
The new income criterion will be Rs. 8 lakh per annum and the hike is in keeping with the increase in the Consumer Price Index and will enable more persons to take advantage of reservation benefits extended to OBCs in government services and admission to central educational institutions.
Mr Jaitley said till today, these norms for creamy layer had not been operationalised for PSUs and financial institutions.
These measures are a part of the Government’s efforts to ensure greater social justice and inclusion for members of the Other Backward Classes, he pointed out.
The Government has already introduced in Parliament, a bill to provide Constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes. It has also decided to set up a Commission, under section 340 of the Constitution, to sub categorize the OBCs, so that the more backward among the OBC communities can also access the benefits of reservation for educational institutions and government jobs.
All these decisions, taken together, are expected to ensure greater representation of OBCs in educational institutions and jobs, while also ensuring that the more under-privileged within the category are not denied their chance of social mobility.
According to the OM of September 8,1993 six categories are specified for identifying Creamy Layer (a) Constitutional/Statutory post (b) Group ‘A’ and Group ‘B’ Officers of Central and State Governments, employees of PSUs and Statutory bodies, universities among others.
As per the OM, these parameters would apply mutatis mutandis to officers holding equivalent or comparable posts in PSUs, Banks, Insurance Organizations, Universities, etc. and the Government was required to determine equivalence of positions in these organisations with those in Government.
Now, pending the equivalence to the established in these institutions income criteria would apply for the officers in these institutions. However, this exercise of determining the equivalence of posts in Government and posts in PSUs and PSBs has been hanging fire for almost 24 years. (UNI)
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