Quota hearing today, 13 states get back with their OBC figures

At a time when the Centre and Supreme Court have locked horns over who constitute the OBC and just how many of them are there in the country, only 13 states have got back to the Centre with data on their OBC population.

At a time when the Centre and Supreme Court have locked horns over who constitute the OBC and just how many of them are there in the country, only 13 states have got back to the Centre with data on their OBC population.

The rest, barring Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Lakshadweep which have no OBC population, have been unable to provide the data — this includes DMK-ruled Tamil Nadu which has been very vocal in protesting the Supreme Court stay on implementation of 27 per cent OBC reservation in higher education institutions from this year.

Disclosing this information in the Rajya Sabha today in response to a question by former Human Resource Development Minister Murli Mano-har Joshi, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar said there was no proposal to enumerate OBC population in view of the Supreme Court stay on OBC reservation — incidentally, hearing in the quota stay case resumes in the court tomorrow.

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According to statistics available with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the OBC data obtained by states are from sources which vary substantially, may not be uniform or even relevant anymore. Some states have data which are very old while others have relied on population projections or estimates by state backward commissions.

OBC data for Chhattisgarh and West Bengal are population projections from the 1931 census when there was no OBC nomenclature then. Another reason why there may be discrepancies is that the Government’s own records state that while 853 communities were listed as SC/STs in 1950, there were 1,829 communities in the 2001 census.

Six states have furnished data based on reports of their backward commissions. Even here, there’s no uniformity. Karnataka has relied on 1974 data while states like UP have gone by the census conducted by their Panchayati Raj offices in 2001 (see chart).

States which have failed to get back with OBC data include Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Orissa, Kerala, Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana and Assam.

It remains to be seen whether the Centre brings the data from the states before the Supreme Court or whether the court accepts that this old data is valid for policy making.