Only 10 Castes Took 25% Bite Out Of OBC Quota Pie, Nearly 1,000 Got Zero Share in Benefits

New Delhi: A quarter of the benefits of reservations meant for other backward castes in central government jobs and educational institutions have gone to only 10 castes while about a thousand castes have no representation at all.

This is the data shared by a commission set up by the government for more equitable distribution of the OBC quota.

However, the data shared in a consultation paper does not specify percentage of individual castes in the total OBC population which would provide for a more representative analysis of the collated data.

The President appointed backward class panel deliberating on the sub-categorisation of the Central list of OBCs has discovered that there exists a “high level of inequity in the distribution of benefits across different communities included in the Central List of OBCs.”

The commission has been entrusted with ways to sub-categorise the central list of the OBCs that now includes 2,633 entries, excluding entries that have been deleted or merged, but counting distinctly numbered subentries like 59(1), 59(2), etc., in Madhya Pradesh, as separate entries.

According to the consultation paper accessed by News18, which has been sent to several states, the commission stated that its work was confined to this list, which pertains to 31 States and Union Territories where OBC reservations are prevalent.

To understand the share of reservations claimed by the OBCs, the commission had collected the caste-wise data on admissions that have taken place during the last three years in educational institutions under the central government through the quota earmarked for the OBCs and had also sought data of recruitment that have taken place during the last five years in the services and organisations.

“Collecting this data was a complex exercise. Most organisations do not keep records of the individual caste-names of the beneficiaries from the OBC category. Generally, the category of reservation like the ST, the SC or the OBC is mentioned in the compiled records. Data on the caste-names of the beneficiaries had to be retrieved from the caste certificates in their respective files,” states the consultation paper.

Now basing this data as the one collected, the commission has noted that “there is a high level of inequity in the distribution of benefits across different communities included in the Central List of OBCs”.

The data which have been normalised by the commission show that “a quarter of the benefits of reservations have been availed by communities in only 10 Entries of the Central List”.

The commission has noted that “another quarter of the benefits has been availed by communities in 38 entries and the third quarter by those in another 102 entries. The last quarter is shared among communities listed in as many as 1,500 entries”.

However, painting a poor picture of resource distribution, the data suggest that “out of these 1,500 entries, 994 have a share of only 2.68 percent. In addition to these, there are another 983 entries in the Central List that have no share in the benefits of reservation”.

According to the backward class panel, the data collected from academic institutions also portrayed a similar picture of inequality.

“The data of OBC admissions and recruitment collected by us also indicates great inequity in the benefits of reservation accruing to different States and Union Territories,” states the consultation report.

The commission has been able to collect more than 1 lakh records of admissions under the OBC quota to the Central Educational Institutions and nearly 1.3 lakh records of recruitment in the services and organisations under the Central Government.

The data on admissions collected by the commission covers all IITs, NITs, IIMs, AIIMS, central Universities including law colleges of these universities and a considerable proportion of the medical admissions under the central quota.

The Cabinet in August had extended the term of the five-member panel headed by Justice G Rohini (Retd), which is looking into the sub-categorisation of the OBCs, till November. However, a further extension till May 31 was sought which delayed the prospect of quota within quota before the 2018 general elections.