Reservation for SC/ST and OBC

Reservation for SC/ST and OBC

Article 16(4) of the Constitution enables provision of reservation to Backward Class of citizens, who are not adequately represented in the State. Reservation is provided to Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) through executive instructions issued from time to time, which has force of law, as held by the Supreme Court in Indira Sawhney case.


As per extant instructions, reservation is provided to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes at the rate of 15%, 7.5% and 27%, respectively, in case of direct recruitment on all-India basis by open competition. In case of direct recruitment on all-India basis otherwise than by open competition, the percentage fixed is 16.66%, 7.5% and 25.84%, respectively.

As per information received from 71 Ministries/Departments, the representation of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in the posts and services under the Central Government as on 01.01.2014 is 17.35%, 8.38% and 19.28%, respectively.

While the representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is as per the prescribed percentage, the representation of Other Backward Classes is less than the prescribed percentage due to the following reasons:-

(i) Reservation for Other Backward Classes started only from the year 1993.

(ii) OBC candidates who are appointed upto 1993, that is before introduction of reservation for OBCs, are not included for counting their representation;

(iii) There is generally a time gap between occurrence of vacancies and filling up such vacancies, as recruitment is a time consuming process.

Based on recommendations of a Committee headed by the Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, time bound action plan for filling up backlog reserved vacancies has been intimated to all concerned Departments/Ministries on 20.11.2014 for filling up such vacancies by August 2016. The Action Plan includes study of reasons for non-filling of backlog reserved vacancies, review of prescribed standards, if required; conducting Special Recruitment Drive and conducting pre-recruitment training programmes.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Laxmi Narayan Yadav and Shri Harishchandra Chavan in the Lok Sabha today.


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Revision of Civil Services recruitment system

An Expert Committee has been constituted by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) under the chairmanship of Shri B. S. Baswan to comprehensively examine the various issues, raised from time to time regarding the Civil Service Examination, with respect to the eligibility, syllabus, scheme and pattern of the Examination vide notice dated 12.8.2015. The committee has been given extension of time till August 2016 to submit its report.

Imparting training to the officers is a continuous process. The course content of the training is modified regularly as per the requirement.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Ajay Nishad in the Lok Sabha today.

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Grievance officer

As per guidelines issued by Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, each Ministry/Department/Public Sector Undertaking/Autonomous Organization is required to designate a full time Grievance Officer, known as Director of Public Grievances. The Director of Public Grievances shall be actively involved in the process of dealing with grievances. Every Wednesday of the week has been earmarked for the Director of Public Grievances for hearing the grievances of the citizens. The names of the Directors of Public Grievances for various Ministries/Departments are available on http://www.pgportal.gov.in.

As per guidelines issued by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, a grievance is required to be redressed within a period of two months. In case, it is not possible an interim reply with reasons for delay is required to be provided.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Prahlad Singh Patel in the Lok Sabha today.