The Justice G. Rohini-headed Commission for the sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes (OBC) caste groups on July 31 submitted its report on the issue to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, nearly six years after the Union government first assigned the task to it — a task that was initially meant to be finished in 12 weeks.
The Commission’s report was submitted on the last day of its functioning on Monday, after it had received up to 14 extensions from the government in the last six years. At first, the government said that the COVID-19 pandemic had slowed down its working. However, after the second wave, the government has been saying that the Commission has been working at finalising its report.
The government had formed the Commission in 2017, to be headed by former Delhi High Court Chief Justice, Justice G. Rohini. The Commission also had as a Member, J.K. Bajaj from the Centre for Policy Studies, along with others.
The Commission was asked to examine the extent to which reservation and other benefits for OBCs are concentrated among some dominant caste groups. Based on this, the Commission was then tasked with suggesting a break-up of the over 2,600 caste groups in the Central OBC list so that these benefits could be equitably redistributed.
According to sources, the Commission has suggested breaking the caste groups into broad categories, with the dominant castes (with most access to benefits) getting the smallest share of the 27% reservation, and the historically crowded-out caste groups getting the largest share of the reservation pie.
Now that the Commission’s report is with the Social Justice Ministry, the government is expected to hold deliberations on the recommendations contained in it, before thinking about implementing any part of it. The report has not been made public yet.
The submission of this report comes as multiple State governments are pushing for independent caste-based surveys in their respective jurisdictions, with the Patna High Court on Tuesday upholding the Bihar Government’s right to conduct such a survey.
Apart from this, there have been renewed efforts from State governments to push for some form of a caste survey, even in States where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power.
While States run by Opposition parties clamour for a caste census to be conducted nationwide, many States, including Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, have conducted exercises to bring OBC reservation in urban local body polls, which has at least led to the updation of caste-related population data in these States.
In addition to the recommendations on sub-categorising OBC caste groups, the Commission also undertook an exercise to minutely examine the entries in the OBC list, and suggest omissions and corrections in spellings of the entries to rationalise the list of castes.
