‘Taxpayers shouldn’t be given quota’
It has been reviewed by Hindustan Times,which tracked down one of the few remaining copies of the report. During a discussion on the bill in the Rajya Sabha, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad made a pointed reference to the panel report suggesting reservation for EBCS in the general category.
In the Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill, 2019, which was passed in record time in both house of Parliament, the government identified a person belonging to an EBC as someone whose annual income is below ₹8 lakh, agricultural land is less than 5 hectares, residential house is smaller than 1,000 square feet, and residential plot is smaller than 109 square yards in a notified municipality and smaller than 209 square yards in a nonnotified municipality area.
While most Opposition groups supported the Bill, some, such as the Congress, questioned the rationale in setting ₹8 lakh as the annual income limit. In Parliament, Congress leader Kapil Sibal asked the government to raise the income tax exemption limit from ₹2.5 lakh to ₹8 lakh and sought to know if there was data on how many people possessed land and residential plots that matched the cut-offs.
In the report, based on visits to 28 states over a period of four years, the Commission for Economically Backward Classes noted that the while the overall percentage of those below the poverty line (BPL) was more among the reserved categories, the EBCS within the general category “suffered low paid occupation, malnutrition, illiteracy, landlessness, and low standards of living”.
The Sinho commission suggested not using the ₹8 lakh annual income limit applicable to the creamy layer of OBCS, pointing out that the economic needs of EBCS among the general category differ and hence just one criterion of BPL or setting a creamy layer upper limit “would not be effective” in ensuring benefits to the EBCS.
Based on the National Sample Survey Office data of 2004-05, the panel identified 58.5 million people as people in the general category who were poor and with the high rate of illiteracy (36.7% in rural areas); 35% were landless and, in many states, the OBCS had higher landholdings compared to the poor among the general category.
While it also suggested extending existing schemes for OBCS “suitably” to uplift EBCS, it recommended a “special economic package for EBCS living within 5 km of the line of control (dividing Kashmir into Indian- and Pakistan-controlled areas), areas affected by natural disasters such as tsunami, floods, famine, inhabitants of disturbed areas, difficult hill terrains and pockets of extreme poverty”.
Other recommendations were to offer special health insurance packages designed for families with chronically ill people to meet their long-term expenses and setting up separate national finance and development corporation for the EBCS to foster their “rapid economic development”.
Barring Rajasthan, none of the states had “framed any conclusive opinion about the reservation to EBCS” among the general category. Bihar had opposed reservation for the EBCS on the grounds that there was no constitutional provision and West Bengal wanted BPL status to be the criteria. Tamil Nadu was against it too.