Ministries fail to submit data on SC, ST and OBC staff

NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister’s Office, Vice-President’s office, the cabinet secretariat and 67 central ministries and departments have failed to report the number of employees belonging to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes, on their rolls. The personnel ministry, which has now asked all ministries to submit data on such employees by June 20, has also failed to comply with its own diktat.

Last October, the ministry had created a new portal to enable ministries to submit their affirmative action progress in an online format.

“The data is significant for answering various Parliament questions, parliamentary committees and Right to Information (applications) and in monitoring the implementation of reservation policy for SCs/STs/OBCs and persons with disabilities,” said a missive sent last week to all ministries by the personnel, pensions and public grievances ministry.

Even the social justice and empowerment ministry, which threatened India Inc with a legislation mandating job reservations unless industry steps up its affirmative action outcomes, has failed to compile such data.

In April, while addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had urged corporates to pay “greater attention to offer productive job opportunities to people from disadvantaged communities, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes” and said that ‘affirmative action must not remain simply a paper exercise, but a living reality’ But the government seems to have no reliable numbers about the outcomes of its own special affirmative action drive launched in 2008 to offer jobs to candidates from SCs, STs, OBCs as well as persons with disabilities.

As per the last known status update with the cabinet secretariat, 47,000 posts have been filled out of a target of 75,500 backlog vacancies, though the programme’s deadline was extended twice. At the time, a dozen ministries had cited problems of finding suitable candidates to explain their failure in filling the vacancies.

About ten departments, including the President’s secretariat, have not furnished any reasons at all. No comments were received from around 45 departments.

According to the personnel ministry’s latest memo, the long list of ministries that have failed to report their employees from SC/ST/OBC and disabled categories, includes: railways, road transport, civil aviation, petroleum and natural gas, labour and employment, external affairs and urban development. The departments of telecom, coal, justice, industrial policy and promotion, legal affairs and defence production are also among the non-compliers.

Social justice and empowerment minister Kumari Selja had said in March this year that the private sector’s achievements on offering jobs to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes since 2006 have been ‘miniscule compared to the magnitude of the challenge.’

“The UPA government is committed to affirmative action by the private sector for SC/ST youth... ,” Selja noted in her letter to industry chambers warning them about the “clamour for alternative remedies from the government.”