If it chooses to accept expert opinion, the government might ask you to share your ‘caste’ details while compiling data for the next National Census or the National Sample Survey. Arguing that there is high disparity in the population estimates particularly for other backward castes (OBC), some experts have emphasised on the need to include ‘caste’ and develop parameters to ascertain the class of individuals in the government surveys.
Referring to the affirmative action being explored by the private sector following directions from the government to ensure employment of people from backward castes, experts from Tata Institute of Social Sciences said that as long as there are “policies and programmes on affirmative action, caste-based census surveys become a pertinent pre-requisite for effective targeting of entitlements.”
Commenting on the results of the 62nd round of NSS survey at a seminar on Thursday which was attended by minister of state for ministry of statistics and programme implementation GK Vasan, the experts said that reservation of 27% seats for OBC in centrally funded higher education was implemented based on the estimates 30 years old.
Comparison of OBC figures quoted by the 62nd round NSSO survey and those by National Family and Health Survey III (NFHS-III) have huge differences. According to the NSSO survey, Kerala has a OBC population of 58.3% while the NFHS-III has put it at 34.79%, a difference of 23.6%. Such high difference in OBC population between the two government surveys were seen in the case of Karnataka, Goa, Punjab and Orissa.
According to a paper on ?Population Estimates of Social Groups: Reliability of large scale survey of NSS and NFHS? co-authored by DP Singh, Jaya Goyal, Sarita Paul and K Srinivasan and presented at the seminar, ?Factors like differences in OBC population across states and in rural and urban areas seem to not have been considered while formulating a blanket reservation policy. To ensure that the current policy making process in the country is based on empirical and statistical evidence, caste based surveys are required.?
It has been pointed that large variations exist in the size of the OBC population among different states. According to the 62nd NSSO survey, states and union territories (UTs) with the largest OBC population are Pudducherry (76%), Tamil Nadu (71%), Kerala (61%) and Bihar (60%) while India’s OBC population is 40.2%. These figures indicate that progressive states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala have majority population of as OBCs.
The 62nd NSS survey has also revealed that though many states and UTs have a higher OBC population in urban areas as has been found in Tamil Nadu, Pudducherry, Manipur, Kerala and Uttaranchal the concentration of OBCs are high in rural areas which indicate that a rural-urban divide exists in the distribution of OBC population across states.