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Stand on Rs 8 lakh EWS cap may hit government OBC ‘creamy layer’ move | India News
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NEW DELHI: The central government’s strong defence against lowering Rs 8 lakh income cap for the EWS eligibility may help it avert a backlash from the upper castes — who are the overwhelming beneficiaries of this quota — but in the process, it has take a stance that is likely to adversely affect its moves on crucial dimensions of the OBC “creamy layer”.
Faced with the prospect of making the EWS income cap more rigid, the ministry of social justice has showed the contrast between the Rs 8 lakh for EWS and the same limit as OBC creamy layer cap, and arguing that the former is much more strict. It has spelt out that the family size for which the income is calculated for EWS is much bigger, and “income” includes “salaries” and “agricultural income”, while in case of OBCs, the “income” does not include “salaries and agri income”. The stress on the fact that EWS income bar is stricter than creamy layer for OBCs, in a sensitive case before the apex court, appears to rule out the possibility of diluting this difference in future.
This is significant because the social justice ministry has been considering a proposal to include “salary” in the “income” to calculate “creamy layer” for OBCs.
The proposal has been in cold storage for nearly 22 months only because it ran into a serious controversy, with the national commission for the backward classes raising a red flag, and even the senior BJP MP Ganesh Singh, as then chairman of the parliamentary committee for OBC welfare, writing to all the BJP MPs from the backward castes to oppose it with the Prime Minister. The emphasis on the qualitative difference between the similar-looking Rs 8 lakh bar for the two categories Is widely seen as the death knell for the proposal to overhaul the creamy layer for OBCs by including “salary” in the “income”. At the same time, the government spelling out that “salary and agri-income“ are not included in “income“ for OBC creamy layer, that too by citing the 2004 OM of the DOPT, is significant.
In many instances in recent years for the backward caste employees in PSUs where “equivalence” of posts has not been done, the government has been including “salary”, which has led to many candidates being denied the OBC quotas after qualifying for elite jobs.
The 2004 OM deals with the issue, that has now been owned by the Centre.
Faced with the prospect of making the EWS income cap more rigid, the ministry of social justice has showed the contrast between the Rs 8 lakh for EWS and the same limit as OBC creamy layer cap, and arguing that the former is much more strict. It has spelt out that the family size for which the income is calculated for EWS is much bigger, and “income” includes “salaries” and “agricultural income”, while in case of OBCs, the “income” does not include “salaries and agri income”. The stress on the fact that EWS income bar is stricter than creamy layer for OBCs, in a sensitive case before the apex court, appears to rule out the possibility of diluting this difference in future.
This is significant because the social justice ministry has been considering a proposal to include “salary” in the “income” to calculate “creamy layer” for OBCs.
The proposal has been in cold storage for nearly 22 months only because it ran into a serious controversy, with the national commission for the backward classes raising a red flag, and even the senior BJP MP Ganesh Singh, as then chairman of the parliamentary committee for OBC welfare, writing to all the BJP MPs from the backward castes to oppose it with the Prime Minister. The emphasis on the qualitative difference between the similar-looking Rs 8 lakh bar for the two categories Is widely seen as the death knell for the proposal to overhaul the creamy layer for OBCs by including “salary” in the “income”. At the same time, the government spelling out that “salary and agri-income“ are not included in “income“ for OBC creamy layer, that too by citing the 2004 OM of the DOPT, is significant.
In many instances in recent years for the backward caste employees in PSUs where “equivalence” of posts has not been done, the government has been including “salary”, which has led to many candidates being denied the OBC quotas after qualifying for elite jobs.
The 2004 OM deals with the issue, that has now been owned by the Centre.
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