Continued indifference of the state’s bureaucracy towards the UP State backward class’s commission has reduced the panel to a defunct organization. The bureaucracy has stonewalled all the queries by the commission about the representation of the RsOther backward castes’ (OBCs) in state services and their share in myriad development and welfare schemes being implemented by the state government. The OBCs constitute the core vote bank of the ruling Samajwadi party.
Even after over two decades of its existence the Commission, set up in 1993, it has no credible caste wise data about the castes included in the state list of OBCs. In state OBCs list 79 castes have so far been included. The commission is clueless about the implementation of the 27 percent quota for the OBCs in various government departments as recommended by the Mandal commission. The announcement for the implementation of the Mandal report was made by the then prime minister VP Singh in August 1990. The Supreme Court had stayed the implementation of the quota. The apex court later in its landmark judgment in November 1992 upheld the constitutional validity of the 27 percent quota for the OBCs.
The commission in July had circulated a questionnaire among all district magistrates, principal secretaries and heads of departments/directorates seeking detailed information on the state of the reservation, the share of the different castes listed in state OBC list in the implementation of various welfare and development scheme. The commission has sought detailed information from all the district magistrates. The commission particularly concerned over the lack of representation of the OBCs in state services as per their 27 percent quota had sought the information from the state government. So far there is no response from the government.
Following the non compliance of its directives by the district magistrates and heads of other government departments, the Commission wrote to the Chief Secretary seeking action against the erring officials. Failing to get any response from the chief secretary the commission has now petitioned the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
“I have written several letters to the state’s chief secretary over the lack of response from the district magistrates and other government officials. The chief secretary Alok Ranjan has not even acknowledged our letters. I have sent a fresh letter to him seeking information how many letters from the commission were received by his office and the action taken,” said Ram Asrey Vishwakarma, chairman of the UP OBCs commission.
He added RsRs under civil procedure code the commission has the powers to summon the officials but we have no powers to launch the contempt proceedings against the officials defying our directions’’.
RsRsFollowing the direction of the Supreme Court in 2010, the information about the OBCs employees in state services was compiled by the state government. That data is faulty and incorrect as every OBCs employee who joined the service before the Mandal report were also included in that list thus the number of employees reflected in that data were more than 27 percent, the cap on the OBCs quota’’, said Ram Asrey Vishwakarma.
He said RsRs despite our repeated reminders the Panchayatraj department has not furnished us any information about the share of the OBCs population in the state. The commission has sought the caste wise data about the OBCs population in the state at village, block and district level, rapid survey for ascertaining the OBCs population was conducted by the panchayatraj department but they have not shared this information with us’’.
The state government had issued orders in 2008 for the implementation of quota for the OBCs where the government departments had outsourced the service to some private agency or the employees were appointed on contracts. The OBCs commission is seeking compiled information from the state government on the number of the OBCs employees in outsourced service and contractual employees, but to no avail. The government has not provided any information to the OBCs commission about the implementation of reservation for OBCs in all industrial units where the government’s equity participation is between 11 to 49 percent.