Haryana cabinet approves bill for quota within quota for SCs :

1. The Haryana cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar approved the draft bill ‘The Haryana Scheduled Castes (Reservation in Admission in Educational Institutions) bill, 2020.’

2. The bill provides reservation of 50% seats to the deprived scheduled castes, out of the total 20% reserved for SC in the graduation and postgraduation courses in educational institutions maintained by the government or receiving aid out of the state funds. It also includes government and government-aided technical and professional institutions.

3. Deprived SC includes all 36 castes which were part of Block A. These include Adidharmi, Balmiki, Bazigar, Dhanak, Khatik, Mazhabi, Mazhabi Sikh, Od, Sapela, Sapera, Sikriband, Bhanjra, Bawaria and Barar.

4. As per employees data collected, the total number of the SC employees in the state is nearly 22% of the total strength. However, in respect of representation in various services, the erstwhile Block A scheduled castes representation in Group-A, Group-B and Group-C services is only 4.7 per cent, 4.14 per cent and 6.27 per cent respectively, though their population is about 11% of the total state population.

5. As for the erstwhile Block B scheduled castes (who are also about 11% of the total population) the representation in Group A, Group B and Group C services is 11%, 11.31% and 11.8%.

6. It was said in the meeting that the Block A scheduled castes or the deprived scheduled castes were not so educationally qualified as the data from SECC 2011 indicates. Only 2.13% population of the deprived SCs is graduate, 3.78% of them are senior secondary and 6.74% are matriculate. Besides, 33.63% of them are illiterate. This makes them a distinct class of citizens who are deprived of their constitutional right of equality due to lack of education. Thus, it was decided to provide such reservation in admission to candidates belonging to deprived SCs.