J&K Government Winds Up SEBCC: Rising Reservations and RBA Debates Leave Open Merit Quota at 35%
Nearly 80 proposals were under examination
Some representations sought doing away with RBA category
JAMMU: The Government has formally wound up Jammu and Kashmir Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission (SEBCC) leaving the task of exclusion or inclusion of backward areas based on the criteria unfinished. There was also a demand for lowering RBA percentage from 10 to enhance Open Merit quota which has hardly been left to 35 percent in the Union Territory.
Official sources told the Excelsior that extended term of the Commission ended yesterday and it hasn’t been granted any further extension. The Panel headed by Retired High Court Judge Justice GD Sharma and comprising Rup Lal Bharti, Retired IFS officer and Munir Khan, Retired IPS officer, has formally been wound up, they said.
Excelsior had earlier exclusively reported that the Commission which was set up in March 2020 may not get further extension.
“As many as 80 proposals were under examination of the Panel for inclusion of the areas as backward. At the same time, the Commission members toured many existing areas which were listed in RBA category but had developed over the time and could be excluded from the list,” the officials said.
There were some representations with the Commission that the RBA category didn’t exist in most of the States and Union Territories and this should be done away with especially after the Government granted eight percent reservation to Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Previously, there was no reservation given to the OBCs in Jammu and Kashmir but four percent reservation had been granted to Other Social Castes (OSCs). The Modi 2.0 Government passed a bill in the Parliament in February this year granting reservations to the OBCs for the first time in the UT.
Till sometime back, there was 20 percent reservation given to the RBA category but it was subsequently brought down to 10. Even there was question mark on 10 percent reservation under RBA category on the ground that previous Government functionaries got included their ancestral villages in the backward category list to avail benefits of reservations for their kids. Moreover, the RBA category existed mainly in J&K.
The Commission had tenure of four years and nine months getting one after the other extensions from the Government.
Recently, Omar Abdullah Government set up Cabinet Sub Committee on reservations comprising three Ministers including Sakina Itoo, Satish Sharma and Javed Rana. The Committee was set up amid uproar that only 35 percent quota was left for the Open Category.
Inclusion of Pahari Ethnic tribe, Paddari tribe, Koli & Gadda Brahmins in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category was also recommended by the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission.
After the Government raised reservation under Scheduled Tribes (ST) category to 20 and granted eight percent quota to Other Backward Classes (OBCs), the reservation in Open Merit category has come down to 40 percent. However, if horizontal reservation for Ex-Servicemen (6 percent) and Persons with Disabilities (4 percent) and some reserved category people opting for Open Merit is taken into account, the Open Merit vacancies further come down to around 35 percent.
While STs already had 10 percent reservation, the Government granted another 10 percent reservation to Pahari Ethnic Tribe, Paddari Tribe, Koli & Gadda Brahmans taking total reservation under ST category to 20 percent. Previous four percent reservations under Other Social Castes (OSCs) was abolished and eight percent reservation was given to the OBCs. Besides, there is eight percent reservation to Scheduled Castes (SCs), 10 percent to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), four percent to the people living on International Border/Line of Control and 10 percent to RBA.
