The State Government on Wednesday formed an Odisha State Commission for Other Backward Classes and appointed former Judge of the Orissa High Court Justice Raghunath Biswal as its Chairperson.
The Government constituted the commission in accordance with the provisions in the Odisha State Commission for Backward Classes Act 1993. The commission comprises the chairperson, three members and a member-secretary.
While IAS officer Veer Vikram Yadav was appointed the Member-Secretary, Prof Navneeta Rath, Prof Mitali Chinara and Prasanna Kumar Patra were appointed as its Members.
Earlier, Justice Raghunath Biswal had served as President of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission from November 2012 to March 2017.
Prof Navneeta Rath is a distinguished social scientist in the Department of Sociology, who has also conducted studies on backward classes, Prof Mitali Chinara is the Professor in the Department of Economics and well-known in the field of Applied and Analytical Economics.
Prasanna Patra is a renowned anthropologist in Department of Anthropology at the Utkal University and his research areas include socio-cultural, biological anthropology and demography.
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the State Government should provide Constitutional rights to the OBC and the SEBC categories’ people.
“People belonging to SEBC and OBC categories in Odisha have been deprived of their constitutional rights for the last 30 years. They need to get reservation in both jobs and education. Though late, the State Government has now constituted an OBC Commission due to long demand of the OBC people,” said Pradhan.