Nearly 20 years after the never-accounted-for Dalit population of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands was clubbed with the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category by the Union Territory administration, and a decade after the Centre did the same, a parliamentary committee has now called for a special panel to evaluate the issues faced by the Scheduled Castes in particular, and ensure their representation in services in the islands.
The Parliamentary Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, headed by BJP MP Kirit Premjibhai Solanki, has noted that there was a “significant presence of Scheduled Castes in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands”, also suggesting that they should be considered for welfare schemes and service matters.
But no census has ever recorded any Scheduled Caste population in the Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands and neither has the Constitution (SC) Order ever listed any community as SC in the islands – something that was flagged by the erstwhile National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (NCSCST) as far back as in 1999 as a “vital problem”.
