Patna (TIP)- Seventy-five percent of government jobs and education seats in Bihar shall be reserved for people from marginalised castes and economically weaker sections, the state’s legislative assembly decided on Thursday (November 9). Legislators passed Bills increasing the extent of caste-based reservation from 50% to 65% through voice vote on, PTI reported. Added to the 65% caste-based reservation, the EWS quota takes the total reservation in the state to 75%. Reservation increased by the following amounts: from 12% to 15% for other backward classes (OBCs), from 18% to 25% for extremely backward classes (EBCs), from 16% to 20% for Scheduled Castes and from 1% to 2% for Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Outside of the caste-based quotas, the remaining 10% of reservation, which is for people from the economically weaker sections of society, is in effect under the provisions of a separate legislation, the state government said according to the Indian Express.
The Bihar assembly’s latest decision comes a little over a month after the state government released the results of a socio-economic caste survey it conducted in two phases starting in January this year. According to data from the survey, OBCs and EBCs make up 27.13% and 36.01% of Bihar’s population, respectively.
SCs constitute 19.65% of Bihar residents and STs 1.68%.
General or ‘upper’ caste groups are 15.52% of the population.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar said that his government will find more ways to use the survey’s results, PTI reported. “I will be glad if the [Union government] too agrees to a caste census and [hikes] reservations across the country,” Kumar added, according to the news agency.
The BJP’s Bihar unit extended its support for the increase in legislation, the Hindustan Times reported. However, unit chief Sushil Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah have alleged discrepancies in the survey data.
Kumar has responded by saying, “Those who say their caste numbers have come down or some castes have inflated figures are talking trash. This is the first caste survey after 1931. How do they know their numbers without any study?” The state government’s survey also sought to measure the socio-economic conditions of Bihar’s population. It found that about 94 lakh families – or 34.13% of the total 2.76 crore families in Bihar – are economically poor and earn less than Rs 6,000 a month.
Kumar announced a slew of welfare benefits for poor families in the state after tabling the survey’s result in the Bihar assembly on Tuesday (November 7). The reservation legislation passed on Thursday will become law after obtaining assent from the state’s governor Rajendra Arlekar.
The percentage of quotas does exceed the 50% ceiling imposed by the Supreme Court in its 1992 Indra Sawhney judgement. Some states, such as Tamil Nadu in the south and most states in the north-east, have reservations that cross the apex court’s 50% ceiling. But in other cases, such as that of Maharashtra, attempts to cross the halfway mark have been struck down by the judiciary.
The Congress party, which is a member of the INDIA opposition alliance that Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) likewise belongs to, is also a proponent of caste surveys and has promised to legislate the 50% ceiling away if elected to power in the 2024 general election.