Bihar Cabinet Approves 75 Per Cent Quota Proposed By CM Nitish Kumar, Reservation Bill To Be Brought In This Session

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has expressed his support for increasing the quota following the presentation of the Bihar caste survey report in the Assembly and Council.

In response, the state cabinet has decided to raise the quota from 60 per cent (including 10 per cent for EWS) to 75 per cent. It is expected that a reservation bill will be introduced during the current Assembly session.

The state cabinet has made several decisions to provide financial assistance to disadvantaged families.

Firstly, each of the 94 lakh poor families, with a monthly income of less than Rs 6,000, will receive Rs 2 lakh annually for a period of five years.

Additionally, 67 lakh landless families will be given a one-time grant of Rs 1 lakh to build their own homes. These initiatives will result in a yearly burden of Rs 50,000 crore on the state exchequer.

The proposed Bill suggests implementing a quota system with 18 per cent for OBCs, 25 per cent for EBCs, 20 per cent for scheduled caste (SC), 2 per cent for scheduled tribes (ST), and an existing 10 per cent for economically weaker sections (EWS).

Currently, the states have a 50 per cent quota allocation, with 14 per cent for SC, 10 per cent for ST, 12 per cen for EBC, 8 per cent for OBC, and 3 per cent each for women and the poor in the general category. Including the 10 per cent EWS quota, the total quota would be 60 per cent.

According to the survey report, approximately one-third of the state's population, which amounts to about 13 crore people, were classified as poor.

According to a report from The Indian Express, a draft of the Reservation Bill, 2023, is being prepared with the guidance of legal and constitutional experts.

In a recent assembly session, the Chief Minister proposed considering a 65 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Economically Backward Classes (EBC), as the combined population of these groups has reached 63 per cent.

The Chief Minister also argued that the existing separate quotas for women in government jobs (35 per cent) and the economically weaker sections (10 per cent) have made the current three per cent quota for the poor in the general category irrelevant.