The Hindu: New Delhi: Sunday, December 10, 2017.
In the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, only 25 of the 503 Group A officers belong to the OBCs. In 2015, the representation of Group A OBC officers was only 10.71% and Group B officers 7.18% across 12 Ministries, 10 departments and five constitutional bodies which furnished information under the RTI Act then. In 2013, OBCs constituted 9.43% of the Group A officers in 55 Central Government agencies.
“These figures don’t tell the entire story because among the 11 Ministries which refused to provide employee data under the RTI Act this year are the Railways, Defence, Home and Finance, which are large recruiters. The bigger Ministries account for 91.25% of the Central government jobs. Whereas the data provided by the 24 Ministries account for only 8.75% of the total jobs. If you go by the March 2011 Census of Central Government Employees, the Railways has 13,28,199 regular employees and we don’t have the community-based employee data for it,”says E. Muralidharan, a Chennai-based activist, who filed the application under the RTI Act.
In real terms, as against an estimated 31 lakh Central Government employees, the data pertains to only 2,71,375 employees, he added.
Information withheld
In 2015 when he had sought details of OBC employees, as many as 40 Ministries and 48 departments refused to part with the information.
“An Office Memorandum (O.M. -No.43011/10./2002-Estt.Res) dated December 19, 2003 issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions makes it mandatory for each Ministry/department to send a report regarding representation of SCs, STs and OBCs in services. But this is followed in breach,” rued the IIT-Madras alumnus.
Dr. Muralidharan recalled that in June 2013, the Ministry of Personnel had issued a detailed memorandum (No. 36038/1(i)/2013 Estt.Res), on measures to be taken to fill up backlog vacancies reserved for SCs/STs/OBCs “at the earliest” monitored at the “highest level”.
Among the recommendations given by the Ministry was that the Departments concerned may take a decision within six months on launching a special recruitment drive providing certain relaxations so that the vacancies may be filled up. It had further said that finishing training be imparted for reserved category candidates.
Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh informed Parliament that based on the recommendations of a committee headed by the Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, a time-bound action plan for filling up backlog reserved vacancies was intimated to all departments as well as Ministries on November 11, 2014 for filling up such vacancies by August 2016.
This Action Plan included study of reasons for non-filling of backlog reserved vacancies, review of prescribed standards, if required; conducting Special Recruitment Drive and conducting pre-recruitment training programmes.
“If the Action Plan was put into motion, we wouldn’t have had the kind of poor representation for OBCs (as of January 1, 2017), as the details furnished under the RTI Act show,” contended Dr. Muralidharan.
Guidelines ignored
S.K. Kharventhan, former member, National Commission for Backward Classes, said among the reasons for under-representation of OBCs is non-filling of backlog vacancies and non-implementation of the communal roster system for filling vacancies.
K. Danasekar, secretary-general, All India Confederation of OBC Employees’ Welfare Associations, said only OBC candidates who enter government service at the age of 23 or so eventually qualify to get promoted as Deputy Secretary or Under Secretary.
“Many enter the service when they are 30 and therefore retire below the rank of Deputy Secretary,” he said.
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