Rohini Commission gets 13th Extension

Rohini commission UPSC: Relevance

• GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Rohini commission OBC: Context

• Recently, the Union Government has gave the 13th extension to the Justice Rohini Commission, giving it time until January 31, 2023 to submit its report.

Rohini Commission on OBC: Key points

• The extension comes after Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry Secretary R Subrahmanyam had told that the commission had not sought any more extension and would submit its report by this July-end when its present term ends.
• Rohini commission was constituted in 2017 under Article 340 of the Constitution to examine the issues related to the sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes.

About Rohini commission

• The mandate of Rohini commission includes examining the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among the castes or communities included in the OBCs.
• The commission was also mandated to work out the mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters in a scientific approach for their sub-categorisation.
• The commission’s mandate is also to take up the exercise of identifying the respective castes or communities or sub-castes or synonyms in the Central List of Other Backward Classes and classifying them into their respective sub-categories.
• Its initial deadline to submit its report was 12 weeks — by January 2, 2018.

What is sub-categorisation of OBC?

• Under the central government, OBCs are granted 27% reservation in jobs and education.
• A debate arose due to the perception that only a few affluent communities among the Central List of OBCs have secured a major part of this 27% reservation.
• The argument for sub-categorisation — or creating categories within OBCs for reservation — is that it would ensure “equitable distribution” of representation among all OBC communities.
• To examine this, the Rohini Commission was constituted in 2017. At that time, it was given 12 weeks to submit its report, but has been given several extensions since.
• Before the Rohini Commission was set up, the Centre had granted constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC).

Findings of the report so far

• In 2018, the Commission analysed the data of 3 lakh central job given under OBC quota over the preceding five years and OBC admissions to colleges over the preceding three years.
• The findings were: 97% of all jobs and educational seats have gone to just 25% of all sub-castes classified as OBCs;
• 95% of these jobs and seats have gone to 10 OBC communities;
• 37% of the total OBC communities—983 OBC communities—have zero representation in jobs and educational institutions;
• 994 OBC sub-castes have a total representation of only 2.68% in recruitment and admissions.

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