NCBC notice to West Bengal on central OBC list tweak | India News

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NEW DELHI: Responding to the recommendation of West Bengal for inclusion of 87 castes in the central OBC list, the National Commission for Backward Classes has asked the state to produce the status of these communities, going back to the Imperial Gazetteer, and their ethnographic details.
Noting that the state has not hiked the OBC quota from 17% to 22% as was suggested by it, the NCBC has asked Bengal to give the reason for inaction and produce the basic file on the subject.
The NCBC has said since the state OBC Commission has mentioned in its advisories that many of these backward castes in Bengal were converts from Hinduism to Islam, the state should produce Gazetteer and ethnographic details of such castes to back its claim that they were Hindu OBCs before they converted. Out of 179 castes in the state OBC list, 118 are Muslims.The national panel has asked the Bengal chief secretary and state OBC welfare department secretary to personally bring the details for the hearing on November 3. The NCBC notice comes in the wake of panel chairman Hansraj Ahir’s statements over last few months on the matter. Also, Trinamool Congress has diverged from the consensus in the opposition INDIA bloc that there should be a caste census in the country.

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Crucially, in the notice, Ahir has noted that Bengal has total reservation quota going up to 45%, which has a margin of 5% to touch the upper ceiling allowed by the Supreme Court. Ahir said the NCBC had earlier told the state that the backward quota could be hiked from 17% to 22%, but the state has not acted on its suggestion Instead, the state earlier argued that the subject was a policy matter under the mandate of the state government, and has not taken any decision on the issue, though there is no legal hurdle in doing so.
The NCBC has also asked for caste-wise break up of these 87 castes in admissions to medical colleges, dental colleges and nursing colleges over last three years, and se lections made in examinations conducted by various selection boards over last 10 years. It has also sought caste- wise break up of employees across Group 1-4 in ministries, departments, educational institutions, medical institutions and local bodies.




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