Panel to seek briefing on reservation

The committee wants to know the basis of Moily committee's reservation judgement, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Oct 22, 2006, 19:54:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Oversight committee is expected to make a presentation before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD ministry on 27 per cent OBC reservation in first week of November.

The standing committee at its meeting on Wednesday decided to seek a briefing on OBC reservation and other related issues from Moily committee, National Commission for Backward Castes and National Commission for Minority Education Institutions.

The committee wants to know the basis on which the Moily committee has reached its inference on different issues including creamy layer. "They have done an exhaustive work and the committee members would like them to enlighten us on the issue," a committee member said.

Moily had submitted the Oversight committee’s final report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on September 30. The committee had made wide ranging recommendations including institute wise road map for implementation for OBC reservation and opening of new IITs and IIMs. The government is still deliberating on the committee’s report.

The backward castes commission would be asked about status of OBCs and other weaker sections in the country and their educational problems. Similarly, the minority education commission will provide details on status of minority education in the country.

The next meeting of the committee is slated for November 1 and 2 in Delhi. The HRD ministry officials are also expected to submit their view points on the issue at the meeting.

According to the member, the committee wants to receive views of different stakeholders on the issue and the draft bill before finalising its report. "We may be able to reach a decision on in three to four sittings," he added.

The committee is expected to submit its report in December to the Parliament. "We will do your job at the earliest at the HRD ministry will have to redraft the bill in wake of your recommendations to implement reservation from the next academic year," he said.

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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