Higher income ceiling for OBC ‘creamy layer’?

NEW DELHI: Rigid income limits to determine the “creamy layer” are impeding the representation of OBCs in services and education, a parliamentary panel has said, urging the government to be liberal with the “wealth test” applied to exclude backwards from availing Mandal reservations.


The push for easing the definition of “creamy layer” – relatively better-off OBCs who are ineligible for quotas –comes in the backdrop of government’s disclosure that the Mandal classes comprise only 21% of the employees in 78 central ministries and departments.


The total numbers appear relatively healthy because of the 22% share of OBCs in ‘Group C’ jobs. Else, they stand at mere 13% in ‘Group A’ and around 15% in ‘Group B’. Twenty seven percent Mandal reservations are in force for nearly three decades.

Saying that government has blamed the backlog on “non-availability of suitable candidates”, Parliament’s committee on welfare of OBCs, headed by BJP MP Ganesh Singh, noted, “There is a limit to which the income of a person can be taken as a measure of his social advancement. Therefore, policy decisions should not prescribe unusually rigid income limits because such restrictions have the effect of taking away with one hand what is given with the other. ”

This income ceiling to weed out “creamy layer” has been a bone of contention for a long time. Social justice activists argue that largely, it is the comparatively better-off OBCs who have the educational standards to strongly contest for quota seats.

However, a low income bar leads to exclusion of these sections, creating a paucity of competitive candidates among OBCs. “It leads to the inference, and also apprehension, that when stringent restrictions are imposed for determining the creamy layer, the objective of the government to fill up 27% of the vacancies by OBCs may not be achieved,” the panel argued. As a result, the committee has urged the government to take into account rise in per capita income and cost of overall living, and fix a “judicious and realistic enhancement of the income ceiling”.

Lashing out at the government, it has said that 1993 norms of Mandal reservations laid down that “income ceiling” would be revised every three years or less but the periodicity of revision has been much longer.