OBC population has increased: NSSO

NSSO report reveals that OBC population has increased from 35.8% in 1999 to 41% in 2004-05, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Nov 1, 2006, 03:02:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The question the Supreme Court recently raised about the exact count of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the country has finally been answered. The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report released on Tuesday reveals that OBC population has increased from 35.8 per cent in 1999 to 41 per cent in 2004-05.

However, the Scheduled Castes (20 per cent) and Scheduled Tribes (eight per cent) population has remained static says the report based on the survey of 1.25 lakh households across India. Concentration of people from the socially weaker groups is more in rural India as compared to towns and cities.

The survey brings out that the OBCs have a buying capacity almost equal to that of the forward communities and more than SC's and ST's.

The NSSO assigns no reasons for this phenomenon. But the OBCs were always socially connected - unlike the SCs - and were therefore better placed to be gainfully self-employed.

In rural India, as many as eight per cent of OBCs spends Rs 1,100 or more every month as compared to 11 per cent of the forward communities.

For SC and STs, the percentage is as low as two and one per cent respectively. A reason for this may be better land holding among OBCs as compared to SCs and STs.

The OBCs see a jump in their spending capability of more than Rs 1,100 every month in urban India with percentage rising to 10 per cent as compared to 12 per cent for other communities. In urban areas, even purchasing power of even STs rises to about 13 per cent.

OBCs may be economically better but STs have the best-employed rate with 50 per followed by SCs and OBC with about 42 per cent.

The others are poorly employed at just 38.9 per cent, a dip of two per cent for them.

India's over all employment rate is 42 per cent, an increase of about three per cent as compared to 1999.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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