The commission may take assistance from various organisations, institutions or individuals for obtaining such information or statistics and can avail advice of experts and researchers by holding meetings with them. A week after the Supreme Court rejected the interim report of the Maharashtra State Commission for Backward Classes (MSCBC) on providing quota to OBCs in local bodies, the state government on Friday set up a six-member dedicated commission to prepare a report on the political backwardness of the community so that it can be provided reservation in local bodies.
The panel will be headed by former chief secretary Jayant Kumar Banthia. Sources said the report is expected in three months. As per the government notification, while Banthia will be the chairman of the commission, retired IAS officers Mahesh Zagade and Naresh Gite, retired principal secretary (Legislation) H B Patel as well as directors or representatives of Indian Institute of Population Studies (IIPS) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) will be its members.
Pankaj Kumar, managing director of Maharashtra Fisheries Development Corporation will be a member-secretary of the commission. Last week, the SC had rejected the MSCBC report, which recommended up to 27 per cent OBC quota in local bodies, noting that the interim report was prepared without empirical study and research. Subsequently, the government decided to set up a separate commission to prepare a report on the political backwardness of the OBCs.
The SC’s rejection of the interim report assumes significance for the Maha Vikas Aghadi government as the elections for 10 municipal corporations and 25 zilla parishads are likely to be held in the next few months.
The terms of reference for the new commission included conducting contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the political backwardness of the OBCs in local bodies and ascertaining rural and urban local body-wise proportion of OBC population before submitting a report with its recommendations to the state government as per SC directions.
The commission may take assistance from various organisations, institutions or individuals for obtaining such information or statistics and can avail advice of experts and researchers by holding meetings with them. It can also arrange study tours to visit various areas in Maharashtra or in other states.
Sources in the government said that the chairman and members of the commission have dealt with data in the past and are experts. “While Banthia had served as Census commissioner for 10 years, Gite worked on socio-economic and caste census 2011. Besides, IIPS and TISS are experts on the subject. We feel that this commission will be able to decide on the political backwardness of the OBCs and come out with a report on it,” said a source.
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