Govt data exposes discrimination, unfair treatment of SC, ST OBC in education, jobs: AIOBCSA

NEW DELHI: The government data shows the violation of scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), other backward classes (OBC) reservation policy in education and jobs and how deserving candidates are denied opportunities, the All India OBC Students Association (AIOBCSA) said.

The Indian Constitution provides 15%, 7.5% and 27% reservation for SC, ST and OBC respectively. However, there are a lot of challenges including “roster violations, reservation deprivation, not filling posts by simply stating ‘not found suitable’“, the OBC group said.

Roster violation refers to manipulating reserved seats in education and jobs. Explaining how the roster violations are done, AIOBCSA said: “This is done by various means, such as not filling the reserved seats, clubbing reserved seats together and not following the prescribed roster.”

A government data submitted before the Rajya Sabha revealed that 4,365 candidates were recruited for IAS, IPS and IFoS during 2018-2022. Of this, only 334 (7.65%) were from SC, 166 (3.8%) from ST, 695 (15.92%) from OBC.

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The association further pointed out the recent Employee’s Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) notification that stated “out of the 418 available posts for the EO/AO in EPFO, only 78 vacancies are reserved for OBCs, while 112 posts were expected”. On the other hand 51 seats were reserved for EWS, while only 41 were expected, it claimed.

The OBC group urged the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to conduct a thorough investigation and take necessary corrective measures.

Further, it also highlighted the ministry of education in 2021 asked the central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Indian Institutes of Information and Technology (IIIT), National Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management (IIM),, Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) and Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc Bangalore) to fill the vacant posts for reserved categories in one year.

However, the recent data submitted by the education ministry showed that over 27,000 vacancies across central higher education institutions are yet to be filled.