At the instance of the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Secretary has made it clear that the government shall maintain “status quo” on all reservation-related issues.
New Delhi : Scared of protests over any changes in the reservation policy, the government has put on hold a proposal evolved over three years of consultations for changing the criteria and procedure for inclusion of communities in the list of the Scheduled Tribes to extend to them reservations in government jobs and colleges.
At the instance of the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Secretary has made it clear that the government shall maintain “status quo” on all reservation-related issues. The Tribal Affairs Ministry initiated the move to change the criteria on who should be declared a Scheduled Tribe in 2014 and finalised the proposal mid-2015 after consultations with the stakeholders.
A Cabinet note sent by the ministry in August 2015 for changing the criteria is, however, remains hanging because of one or other agitation on the issue of the reservation. First, the Patidar agitation in Gujarat came in the way of the ministry’s report in 2015 and now the government does not want to pursue the report in view of the Jat agitation in Haryana first in 2016 and again since early this month.
In both cases, the agitations were with regard to the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) that have nothing to do with the Scheduled Tribe (ST) reservation and yet this clarification by the ministry did not help. The ministry officials say over 200 proposals from different states have piled up with the Centre for granting the ST status to different communities because of its decision better to maintain the “status quo.”
