Congress to hold conventions of OBCs

In the run-up to the next Legislative Assembly elections, the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) wing of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) has decided to hold a State-, district- and Assembly constituency-level conventions of OBCs from September 20.

President of the KPCC’s OBC wing M.V. Venugopal on Sunday held meeting with presidents of the OBC wings of district Congress committees here and announced that the conventions were aimed at mobilising support of the OBCs in favour of the Congress.

Crucial

Noting that votes of OBCs decide the fate of the party in the coming elections, he said misrule of the Bharatiya Janata Party would be exposed during the conventions. Conventions of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe people, OBCs and minorities would be held at divisional levels, he said.

Asked about the number of OBC candidates that the party was planning to field, Mr. Venugopal said, “I have no powers to issue ticket. But I will place proposals about the number of potential winning OBC candidates before the KPCC president.”

Oath

Before the commencement of the meeting, presidents of the district OBC wings took an oath and expressed their solidarity with Mr. Venugopal and also KPCC president G. Parameshwara.

Leaders of the party’s OBC wing would also visit drought-hit districts, Mr. Venugopal said.

Reserved seats for OBCs in Bengal panchayat polls

 If Banerjees and Bhattacharjees or Basus, Sens and Dasguptas, have ruled the roost in Bengal's political scene for all these days, it is time to take a look at other surnames — Kapali, Satchasi, Barui, Mali — from other backward classes (OBC). People with these surnames, both Hindu and Muslim, are poised to hog the limelight in the coming panchayat polls, courtesy Mamata Banerjee government.

The Trinamool Congress government has decided to reserve seats for the OBCs in the three-tier panchayat elections based on the community's representation in rural Bengal. A household survey conducted by the panchayat department bears out that the reservation percentage will be an average 25%. The reservation percentage may go up in districts like Murshidabad, Nadia, and Coochbehar that have a large number of the listed 143 OBCs in the district population. The last OBC census was done in 1931.

The findings of the survey have put forth a challenge before the panchayat department to give due weightage to the OBCs and at the same time keep the total reservation percentage to 50% as mandated by the Supreme Court.

The household survey in rural Bengal is aimed at countering the old Left mindset that didn't recognise the huge presence of OBCs in Bengal, during the Mandal Commission debate. Former land and land reforms minister Benoy Chowdhury had then said there was no sizeable OBC population in Bengal. But later, the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government hiked the OBC reservation percentage in government jobs from 7% to 17%. The reality seems much more than what the Left Front government had enumerated.

With 86 surnames of the total 143 listed as OBCs coming from Muslim, the reservation takes care of the minority community that has a sizeable representation at the grassroots. A cursory look at the OBC list suggests that the selection has been made based on the occupation rather than religion that helps the state government to fend for the rural poor without making any religion-based reservation that goes against the Constitution.

The panchayat polls will thus have reservation for women and OBCs other than the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes for the first time in the state. Fifty per cent reservation for women in all categories — general, SC and ST — was announced by former panchayat minister Anisur Rahman, even though it hit a legal roadblock.

Mamata has taken care of it by amending the reservation provision. The new arrangement is less easy than said. The government has to reserve seats for women in all categories after making separate reservation provisions for SC, ST and OBC. Political parties will have to field candidates according to the formula.

CPM leaders have called a three-day extended state committee meeting beginning September 14, where they will explain the complex formula of candidate selection for the panchayat polls. Mamata and state Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya will hold separate workshops for their partymen.

Chief secretary Samar Ghosh has already held a meeting with state election commissioner Meera Pandey on poll preparations. According to sources, the state election commission wants to have a phase-wise panchayat polls. The chief secretary, however, denied having any such discussion.

"The government has not yet decided on the panchayat poll date. We have just started discussions on the preparations. The government can recommend the date of the panchayat polls anytime within six months before the tenure of the present panchayat ends," Ghosh said.

With the panchayat tenure ending in May, chances are that the state election commission will announce the panchayat polls in January.

Enrolment of OBC students in colleges goes up, that of SC/ST still low: Survey

The percentage of students from the Other Backward Communities who have enrolled in higher education has gone past 27 per cent, but the number of students from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes continues to be unacceptably low, an official survey has revealed.

Indicating an impressive increase in the Gross Enrolment Ratio from 15 per cent in 2009-10 to 18.8 per cent in 2010-11, the survey shows that the enrolment of women has increased substantially from 12.7 per cent to 16.5 per cent during this period, as against that of men, where the increase has been from 17.1 per cent to 20.9 per cent. This, even as only 1 per cent of the universities and 9 per cent of the colleges are meant exclusively for girls.

Of the students in higher educational institutions, OBC students comprise 27.1 per cent, with 27.3 per cent being male and 26.8 per cent being female. However, the Scheduled Castes comprise only 10.2 per cent of the enrolment, with 10.3 per cent male and 10.1 female, while the Scheduled Tribe enrolment is extremely low at 4.4 per cent, with males and females almost on a par, according to an All India Survey on Higher Education, conducted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

“Higher enrolment indicates growing interest in higher education in India. The figures show that India has the highest number of students in colleges after the United States,” Mr. Sibal said, after releasing a first-of-its-kind survey.

There is reservation for all these categories in higher educational institutions. Twenty seven per cent seats are reserved for OBC students, 15 per cent for the Scheduled Castes, and 7.5 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes. However, quotas are applicable only in Central educational institutions. The data on these categories is based primarily on the reservations in publicly-funded institutions, as well as voluntary disclosures.

The initial survey released by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal here on Friday was based on information collected from 448 universities, 8,123 colleges, and 4,076 standalone institutions, until July 31. It is a voluntary exercise, and will help in gathering relevant statistics on higher education on various parameters.

The survey has also suggested that while the number of private unaided colleges accounts for a major share of the total number of colleges (57 per cent), the enrolment in such colleges is only 38 per cent of the total enrolment. The number of students per college under private unaided is the lowest, with just 529. Among the responding colleges, approximately 57 per cent are under private management, and 22 per cent come under the government sector. As far as standalone institutions are concerned, 64 per cent of the responding institutions come under private management.

Thirty-six per cent of the responding universities, 48 per cent colleges, and 56 per cent standalone institutions are located in rural areas. Of the 621 universities (though only 448 uploaded the details) 59 are in Tamil Nadu, 56 in Uttar Pradesh, and 46 in Andhra Pradesh. Though there are 27,468 colleges, only 8,123 participated, of which 4,815 are in Andhra Pradesh, 3,657 in Uttar Pradesh, and 3,328 in Maharashtra. There are 4,118 standalone technical institutions, of which 1,243 are in Maharashtra, while the highest number — 129 — standalone nursing colleges are in Kerala. There are only 308 nursing colleges in the country.

Govt to raise OBC reservation quota in Jammu and Kashmir

Likely To Go Up From 2% To 27%’

Sep 25: Jammu and Kashmir government is ‘actively considering’ the demand for enhancement of OBC reservation from 2 percent to 27 percent in the state.

“We are seriously thinking over the demand and government is already working on it”, Vice Chairman State Advisory Board for the Welfare and Development of Other Backward Classes (OBC), Kuldeep Raj Verma, told reporters here on Tuesday.

He said the state government has approved construction of two hostels one each at Jammu and Srinagar to provide accommodation facilities to the youth from Other Backward Classes (OBC) pursuing studies in the twin capitals of the state.

The government has already allotted 15 kanals of land for construction of OBC hostel and OBC Bhawan at Kiang in Jammu and Pampore in Kashmir, he added.

Verma said till the hostels are constructed, accommodation would be provided in rental buildings.

Listing the measures taken by the government for the welfare of the OBC population on the recommendations of the Advisory Board, Verma informed that the government has agreed to provide loan to 100 OBC youth this fiscal through Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), besides providing admission to the OBC candidates in ITIs under special quota.

He informed that State Advisory Board for the Welfare and Development of Other Backward Classes was vigorously pursuing the issues of OBC people with the government as a result of which the government has enhanced the income slab of Rs 3 lakh for obtaining OBC/OSC certificate to Rs 4.50 lakh.

Verma said that the people of these classes have to face lot of difficulties for getting such certificates and now on the recommendation of the Board the government has decided to issue OBC/OSC certificates simultaneously in one go.

He said that on the pattern of Government of India the pre-matric scholarship for OBC candidates has been enhanced to Rs. 44,500 and post-matric to Rs 1 lakh per annum.

OBC leaders too demand quota in job promotions

The politically-powerful OBC bloc has begun to flex its muscles for reservation in promotions, casting a shadow on the bill to restore the facility for SCs/STs that has already run into resistance from Samajwadi Party and BJP.

A day after DMK chief M Karunanidhi supported the demand for "promotion quota" for OBCs on par with the one proposed for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, other chieftains like Lalu Prasad and N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday threw their weight behind the fresh quota clamour.

Wednesday had also seen members of OBC Parliamentary Forum, headed by Congress's V Hanumantha Rao, demanding that the Centre bring a law to institute "promotion quota" for backwards. The OBC Forum, a pressure group comprising members of all political parties, submitted a formal demand to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The flurry of statements from backward satraps seeking parity with dalits and tribals coincides with the Centre's effort to amend the Constitution to clear the legal hurdles holding up restoration of "promotion quota" for SCs and STs.

The demand to extend "promotion in reservation" to OBCs is not new but had so far been expressed more as a wish. The OBC leadership still appears to acquiesce into the reality, though increasingly grudgingly, that the special circumstances of dalits and tribals -- from untouchability to primitive living conditions -- placed them on a special footing insofar as affirmative action was concerned.

Even on Wednesday, the DMK chief stressed that he was not demanding a "promotion quota" for OBCs as a condition for supporting the Constitution amendment bill for SCs and STs. He even urged political parties to support the bill introduced in Rajya Sabha.

However, the chorus over the past few days marks the beginning of the transformation of the hope into a sense of entitlement; one that was strongly articulated by SP in the all-party meeting held on August 21 to discuss the Constitution amendment bill and, again, on Wednesday after the legislation was introduced in Rajya Sabha.

Political observers find the pitch significant also because of the growing vulnerability of the regime at the Centre, pointing out that their success in 1990 when they coaxed the then PM V P Singh to implement the Mandal Commission's recommendation for an OBC quota in central services could be the inspiration.

Although supported by every political party, implementation of "Mandal award" had not seemed a realistic prospect until Singh, anxious to continue in office, made the fateful announcement in August 1990.

The demand from backward leaders ties in with the grudge among their core constituents that 'promotion quota' for dalits puts them back in their professional careers. SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav angrily complained on Wednesday that "promotion quota" for dalits and tribals would turn "juniors into seniors and vice versa".

Who will tolerate this," the SP chief thundered just after his troops in Rajya Sabha tried to stop the government from introducing the Constitution amendment bill.

In their grievance against the "special status" for dalits and tribals in quota matters, they have a ready compact with upper castes. Leaders like Mulayam see this convergence of grievances as a political opportunity that can be milked at the hustings. Entrenched upper caste lobbies in Congress and BJP are not unhappy, as they hope to leverage the OBC clamour for parity with dalits and tribals in "promotion quota" to thwart the passage of the bill.

BSP supremo Mayawati on Thursday demanded that the Centre extend the monsoon session, ending on Friday, by 10 days to pass the bill.

She said the continued disruption in Parliament showed that the Centre was only playing the charade of trying to pass the bill. She demanded that the Centre restore order in Parliament by talking to BJP on Coalgate and to parties opposed to the bill. "Else, dalits will never forgive the two-faced central government," she said.

The bill seeks to amend the Constitution to exempt promotion quota for dalits and tribals from the criteria of 'backwardness, adequate representation and administrative efficiency'. The apex court has made the three conditions mandatory for giving promotion quota to SC/STs.

In its Indira Sawhney judgment of 1995, the SC had, while upholding Mandal Commission's recommendations, termed promotion quota for all categories -- dalits, tribals and OBCs -- as unconstitutional. The Centre amended the Constitution to insert Clause (4A) in Article 16 to insulate 'promotion quota' for dalits and tribals from the apex court verdict, but left the OBCs out.

The differentiation stands, with the personnel ministry telling Parliament on Wednesday, "The provisions of the Constitution do not enable the government for making provisions for reservation in promotion in favour of OBCs." It said the government was not considering any proposal for promotion quota to OBCs and backward minorities.