A solution in search of a problem: on 10% reservations

A solution in search of a problem: on 10% reservations

Article:

Sonalde Desai director at National Data Innovation Centre discuss about implications of the EWS quota Bill.

Important Analysis:

• Recently, Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill, 2019, creating a 10% quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS) has been passed.
• It is in the view that, the bill was passed keeping in mind the deep inequalities prevalent in access to education and jobs based on caste and socio-economic status, and affirmative action (or positive discrimination).
• However, in author view there is little benefit to be derived from the EWS quota.

Critical Evaluation EWS quota Bill.

• Bill excludes no one:
  • Government has created OBC creamy layer criteria to exclude people who are clearly well off and the EWS quota, in contrast, is expected to focus on the poor, this narrowing income gap, particularly between OBCs and general makes exclusion a problem for the existing quotas.
  • The Bill promises 10% reservation to individuals classified as economically backward or the people with an annual family income of less than Rs 8 lakh per annum.
  • The National Sample Survey (NSS) of 2011-12 shows that the annual per capita expenditure for 99% of households falls under this threshold.
  • Similarly, as per the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), the annual household incomes of 98% of households are less than ₹8 lakhs.
  • Even if other exclusion criteria such as amount of land owned and size of home if applied the Bill would cover over 95% of the households.
• Demand for greater OBC reservation –
  • By removing 10% jobs from the “open” category, it reduces the opportunities for currently reserved groups because General category jobs are open to everyone, including Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and OBC individuals.
  • This may be particularly problematic for OBCs since OBC reservation is limited to 27% of the seats whereas the OBC population is at least 40% of the population.
• Getting caste certificates challenge.
  • Few non-SC/ST/OBC individuals have a caste certificate. A large number of SC/ST/OBC households report difficulties in obtaining these certificates which will not be able to avail the reservation benefits.
• Outpacing deserving candidates
  • In an era when skill demands are rapidly outpacing supply of candidates in specialized fields, the EWS quota increases the constraints. Suppose a university advertises for an associate professor for quantum physics under the EWS quota and the only suitable candidate happens to be from an OBC category, she will not get hired.

Alternatives to spread the benefits:

• In Author view, one way is to spread the benefits of reservations within the existing framework and ensure that individuals use their reserved category status only once in their lifetime.
  • For instance, anyone using reservations to obtain a benefit such as college admission must register his/her Aadhaar number and she would be ineligible to use reservations for another benefit (e.g. a job) in the future. This would require no changes to the basic framework but spread the benefits more broadly within the reserved category
• A second strategy might be to recognise that future economic growth in India is going to come from the private sector and entrepreneurship. In order to ensure that all Indians, regardless of caste, class and religion, are able to partake in economic growth, we must focus on basic skills.
• Focused on admission to prestigious colleges and government jobs has been done, but little attention is directed to social inequality in the quality of elementary schooling. Basically we need to reduce the inequalities within the primary schools.
• The IHDS shows that among children aged 8-11, 68% of the forward caste children can read at Class 1 level while the proportion is far lower for OBCs (56%), SCs (45%) and STs (40%).