OBC leader seeks revision of income ceiling for EWS

Karunanidhy G, member of the Tamil Nadu Government Social Justice Monitoring Committee, has written to the Union Government to revise the income ceiling for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) to RS 15 lakh.

In a letter to Union Social Justice and Empowerment Dr Virendra Kumar Karunanidhy, who is also the General Secretary of the All India Other Backward Class Federation, has stated that the National Commission for Backward Classes had recommended the revision of income ceiling to Rs 15 lakh.  The three-period for revision of income ceiling of Rs 8 lakh for OBCs, has ended on September 1, 2020, Karunanidhy said in his letter.

“We request you to kindly recommend the revision of income ceiling to Rs.15 lakh, as recommended by NCBC in 2015 itself, with explicit mention that 'income from salaries, agriculture and traditional artisanal professions are excluded from Income Test’ in line with the recommendations of Pandey Committee report that has been accepted by the Government and also affidavit filed before the Supreme Court of India,” he added in the letter.

Karunanidhy stated in his letter that an unconstitutional provision of fixing ‘economic criteria’ was imposed on OBCs and the Government ought to have overcome the Court's verdict by bringing constitutional amendment.

“But instead, the Government officials particularly the DOPT (Department of Personnel and Training) is bent upon imposing further restrictions in the name of creamy layer criteria contrary to its own OM (office memorandum) dated 8.9.1993 by including 'salary and agriculture income’ which has to be stopped at least now.

“In this regard, we would like to mention that the three-member committee headed by former Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey was constituted by the Social Justice Ministry, Government of India on 30.11.2021 to review the criteria for identifying EWS,” the letter said.

He quotes from the “In case of deciding the OBC creamy layer, income from salaries, agriculture and traditional artisanal professions are excluded from the consideration” “whereas the Rs.8 lakh criteria for EWS includes that from all sources included farming”.

These recommendations were accepted by the Government and form part of the affidavit filed in the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case relatina to 'EWS'. By this, we are confident that Union Government and Social Justice Ministry has rejected the B P Sharma Committee recommendations to “include salary and agricultural income” and restored the guidelines relating to Income Test mentioned in the original OM dated 8.9.1993 that excludes salary income and agricultural income, which we have been demanding all these years.