Bihar caste row Nitish Kumar proposes to raise Bihar caste quotas to 65 pct past Supreme Court cap
Patna/IBNS: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has proposed increasing reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, as well as Other Backward Classes and Extremely Backward Classes, to 65 percent.
This excludes the Centre's 10 percent reservation for individuals from Economically Weaker Sections and will take the total reservation to 75 percent.
The proposals will take state quotas past the 50 percent cap set by the Supreme Court in 1992.
"We will do the needful after due consultation. We intend to effect these changes in the current session," the Chief Minister said, adding that the three percent quota for OBC women is scrapped.
Under the proposed revised quotas, Scheduled Caste candidates will have 20 percent reservation, while those from OBCs and EBCs will get 43 percent quota - a significant increase from the earlier 30 percent. A reservation of two percent has been proposed for ST candidates.
The current reservation levels are 18 percent for EBCs, 12 percent for Backward Classes, 16 percent for Scheduled Castes, and 1 percent for Scheduled Tribes.
Bihar government tabled the caste survey report carrying details of the socio-economic survey in the state legislature on Tuesday.
The report was tabled by the parliamentary affairs minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, in both houses.
As per the report, more than one-third of the population of Bihar is poor, and the monthly income of 34.13 percent of families was only Rs 6,000.
The report reveals that only 29.61 percent of the families' monthly income was between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000. The report says that more than 63 percent of the families have a monthly income of only Rs 10,000 in the state.
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