Commission on Sub-categorization within OBCs

• The Union Cabinet has approved the Eleventh Extension of the term of the Commission to examine the issue of Sub-categorization within Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the Central List by 6 months from 31st July 2021 to 31st January 2022.
• The Commission was constituted under Article 340 of the Constitution.

Background:

• The First Backward Class Commission report of 1955, also known as the Kalelkar report, had proposed sub-categorisation of OBCs into backward and extremely backward communities.
• The Second Commission, or the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission (SEBC), was established in India on 1979 to ""identify the socially or educationally backward classes"" of India and was headed by B.P. Mandal.
• It submitted its report in 1980 and proposed 27% reservation for OBCs in jobs in central government services and public sector units.
• National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) proposed the sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) back in 2015. In October 2017, the Rohini Commission was constituted to sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes.

• The commission was to originally submit its report by March 2018.
• Earlier, the commission has proposed to divide them into four subcategories numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4 and split the 27% into 2, 6, 9, and 10%, respectively.
• It was given its eleventh extension in July 2021 to submit its report by January 2022.

Functions of the Commission:

• It examine extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among castes included in broad category of OBCs.
• It work out mechanism, norms, criteria and parameters, in scientific approach, for sub-categorization within such OBCs.
• They take up exercise of identifying respective castes/sub-castes/communities synonyms in Central List of OBCs and classify them into their respective sub-categories.

Current status:

• Currently, OBCs are granted 27% reservation in government jobs and educational institutes.
• There are 2,633 Other Backward Castes in the Central List.

Article 340:

• The President appoints a Commission consisting of such persons as he thinks fit to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes and the difficulties under which they labour.
• The commission makes recommendations as to the steps that should be taken by the Union or any State to remove such difficulties and to improve their condition.