A commission appointed by the State government for identifying economically backward sections among the forward communities to grant 10% reservation is learnt to have adopted a flexible approach in setting the norms.
The decision is to have norms that suit the State’s social and economic milieu for beneficiary selection.
Sources privy to the drafting of norms told The Hindu that instead of describing the beneficiaries as forward communities, the commission has redefined them as ‘general category’, comprising all others except Scheduled Castes, Tribes and Other Backward Classes.
Not suitable for State
On finding that the exclusion criteria laid by the Centre was not conducive for the State, the commission has chosen a more flexible and independent approach.
The Central norms were found to be too rigid and incompatible to the social conditions of the State.
House and farmland
For instance, it seeks to weed out those having five acres of land or more, a housing plot of two cents in Corporation and municipal areas and four cents or more in rural areas. It has also been proposed to keep off those having a house of 1,000 sq.ft. The same was applicable in the case of those possessing farmland.
Majority of such norms were drawn up to in accordance with the conditions in north Indian States and could not be adopted as such in the State.
No dilution in norms
The commission had made suitable changes to suit the social conditions here and had also ensured that the 10% quota was retained without any dilution.
This was expected to be advantageous to those communities that figure in the bracket, sources said.
As per the statistics of the Indian Sample Survey Organisation, the general category in the State’s population accounted for 27.73%.
Other than eliciting information from the Directorate of Employment Exchange, Commissionerate of Entrance Examinations, Public Service Commission, and Directorate of Economics and Statistics, among others, it had sought the views of elected representatives and 30 organisations representing various communities in this category.
It had also relied on Supreme Court verdicts on reservation and also on commission reports, including the S.R. Sinho Commission report that specifically dealt with quota for such sections, sources said.
The commission, headed by former Judge K. Sasidharan Nair and M. Rajagopalan Nair, completed their task in six months and submitted its report to the government on Friday.
