124th Amendment Bill - EWS Quota. Little Benefit.

10% for EWS - Circumspect Efficacy - Who is Beneficiary

What worth India’s reservation system? The efficacy of recently passed 124th Constitution Amendment Bill 2019 - creating 10% quota for economically weaker sections - is circumspect.

This is a private attempt at evaluating potential implications of EWS quota Bill by a Professor at an American University, also Director at NCAER-National Data Innovation Centre. NCAER is National Council of Applied Economic Research

There are deep inequalities prevalent in

i. access to education

ii. jobs based on caste and socio-economic status

Affirmative action or positive discrimination makes sense. Times have also changed over 7 decades. There are considerations of technology amongst others.

The Bill promises 10% reservation to economically backward. And those are? ..  Despite discussions in Parliament, the Bill is silent on various criteria! There are assumptions and there is non-clarity. [Keep it hazy dude, huh?] Will the currently applied criteria for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) creamy layer be applied? And if so, how? OBC creamy layer excludes people who are clearly well off. EWS quota is expected to focus on the poor. Income threshold of ₹8 lakh per annum has been mentioned as a criterion. The National Sample Survey (NSS) of 2011-12 throws some insights. So does India Human Development Survey (IHDS). Even if all other exclusion criteria are applied (e.g. amount of land owned and size of home), the Bill would still cover over 95% of households. So almost no one is excluded.

Counterproductive? Benefits of EWS quota are likely to be minimal. Cost may be higher than anticipated. General category jobs are open to everyone, incl Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and OBC individuals. By removing 10% jobs from the “open” category, it reduces opportunities for currently reserved groups. So what gain? What is solved? OBC reservation is limited to 27% of the seats whereas the OBC population is at least 40%. So now calls for greater OBC reservation will emerge!

Caste certificates: Few non-SC/ST/OBC individuals have a caste certificate. A large number of SC/ST/OBC households report difficulties in obtaining these. How does an individual lay claim? Skill demands of present era outpace supply of candidates in specialised fields, and thus EWS quota increases the constraints. If a vacancy exists for a position under EWS quota and the only suitable candidate happens to be from OBC, they could not be hired. 

The reservation policy should be designed effectively such that we genuinely see an end to entrenched inequalities. Aim should be to make reservations redundant in the next so many years. So what would an effective affirmative action policy look like from the beginning? 50% reservation is indeed very large; at the same time it is blunt more often than not. In spite of reservations, a vast proportion of reserved category applicants do not find a place via UPSC.

Perhaps you could ensure that individuals use their reserved category status only once in their lifetime. So if you use reservation in education then you are not eligible for jobs reservations later. [Yes, that is right. This seems logical. Why is this not mplemented on ground, NII asks?]

Little attention is directed to social inequality in the quality of elementary schooling. We need to focus on reducing inequalities where they first emerge - ‘within primary schools’. The reservation system was developed in a different era. It definitely needs modifications.

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“.. Thus, by removing 10% jobs from the “open” category, it reduces the opportunities for currently reserved groups. Hence, this is by no means a win-win situation. ..”

“.. We have gotten so used to business as usual that we make no effort to sharpen our focus and look for more effective solutions, solutions that would make reservations redundant in 50 years. ..”

“. This implies that if we expect reservations to cure the ills of Indian society, we may have a long wait. .”

“.. One strategy may be to try and spread the benefits of reservations as widely as possible within the existing framework and ensure that individuals use their reserved category status only once in their lifetime. ..”

“.. The challenge we face is that our mindset is so driven by the reservation system that was developed in a different era that we have not had the time or the inclination to think about its success or to examine possible modifications. ..”

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Find this at http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem/article25962037.ece .

This is from January 2019.

Some more words, tags: Society Ills, Creaking System, Bane, Lopsided Laws, Partiality, Bias. We Must Aim For Meritocracy And Not Idiocracy. Whither India.

NII feels:-

- reservation system is more a burden.

- reservations do not cure the ills of Indian society.

- one may enjoy benefits of reservation only once in lifetime; if you were provided benefit in education, then further benefit of no sort should be made available to you anywhere else any time - jobs or whatever else.

-- -- if your parents got benefit of reservation of any sort then you are now not eligible for any reservation at all. Stop. It is over. OVER. Have some self respect.