The Bihar Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed the Bihar Reservation amendment Bill to raise the quota for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Extremely Backward Classes and Other Backward Classes from the existing limit of 50 per cent to 65 per cent. The Bill excludes the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota from its ambit since they are already in effect under a separate Act.
With the hike in reservation, the effective seats available for the general unreserved category comes further down to 25 per cent with 75 per cent reservation now in force. The amendment Bill will now be moved in the Upper House of the state later today.
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As per the Bill, the reservation for OBCs would go up from the existing 8 per cent to 18 per cent quota, EBCs from 12 per cent to 25 per cent, Scheduled Castes from 14 per cent to 20 per cent while the Scheduled Tribes quota would fall from the existing 10 per cent to only 2 per cent. The ST population in the caste survey report stands at 2 per cent.
The 3 per cent quota in jobs for women has also been done away with since women have 35 per cent quota in jobs.
The development comes a day after the Bill was cleared by the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led cabinet and two days after the tabling of the caste based survey report in the state Assembly and the legislative council.
The caste survey was Chief Minister Kumar’s pet project launched over a year ago. Portions of its findings were revealed on October 2 this year.