Click to play videoNew Delhi: Just before elections are announced in Uttar Pradesh, the Centre is yet again planning a caste-based welfare sop.
But this time the Centre is focusing on the poor among Brahmins and Thakurs. It has already announced reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in higher educations institutes, so the agenda now is to try a balancing act by favouring the upper castes.
A commission set up to study how to provide affirmative action for the poor among the upper caste is being revitalised and has been given a one-year extension. The chairperson of the Commission for Economically Poorer Sections, Major General (Retd.) S R Sinho says he needs another year to submit his report. " Yes we need one year...one more year," says Sinho.
The commission was quietly set up in July 2006—around the same time the government was trying to wriggle out of the OBC quota controversy—and given a six-month tenure. It should have given its report by Wednesday, but couldn’t meet the deadline as it was given accommodation this January.
Affirmative action for the poor among the upper castes was first demanded during the Rajasthan assembly elections in 2003. Jats in the state were included in the OBC list after that.
The BJP-led NDA government did the spadework for this commission but the new government has decided not to shelve it.
The commission will study legal aspects of providing affirmative action; it will also recommend whether benefits of reservations can be extended to upper castes and will consult state governments on the issue.
A proposal to give the commission a fresh lease of life is being sent to the Union Cabinet.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)
More on IBNLive Right Now
MOST SHARED
PHOTOGALLERY
