Govt to revise income criteria for creamy layer in OBCs
The government is revising the existing ceiling for income and wealth to determine the creamy layer or the affluent among the other backward classes (OBC).
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: The government is revising the existing ceiling for income and wealth to determine the creamy layer or the affluent among the other backward classes (OBC). At present, the cut-off slab is at Rs 2.5 lakh per year. The National Commission for Backward Classes, which has been entrusted with the task, has put out a public notice to elicit views on what the revised limits should be.
The NCBC has asked that all comments be addressed within the month, that is by early June. The Commission has suggested that it would require some three to four months to finalise the new income criteria to determine the creamy layer among OBCs.
The government, it would appear, had already anticipated that the Supreme Court would stay the OBC quota law, with the proviso that the creamy layer be excluded from its ambit. This would explain why the government entrusted the task of revising the creamy layer income criteria to the NCBC as early as December 2007. The apex court stayed the 27% reservation quota for OBC in central education institutes in late March.
This would also explain, why UPA government allies like the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Lok Janashakti Party and DMK readily agreed to excluding the creamy layer from the ambit of reservation, instead of demanding that the government file a review petition in court. An upward revision of the income criteria, which was already in the works, would increase the net of all those who could avail of the reservation provisions.
It is likely that the government to prefer to increase the income slab by at least double, raising the creamy layer criterion to Rs 5 lakh per annum. This would allow more people to benefit from the OBC reservation. The definition of who constitutes the creamy layer has been laid out in the government order of September 1993. The income criteria was revised in March 2004, when it was raised to Rs 2.5 lakh per annum. As per the government order defining creamy layer, the income criteria is supposed to be revised every three years.
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