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The Centre on Thursday set up an expert group headed by NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya to collate caste count, blaming the states for not being able to complete the consolidation of different categories.
However, the government’s move to not release the caste census along with the economic one had earlier led the Opposition to cry foul, saying the data was withheld ahead of Bihar elections. The issue may create further hurdles in the monsoon session, slated to start from next week.
The decision was taken in a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Announcing it, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “A decision was taken today (Thursday) to set up a committee chaired by vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, which will classify this caste data. When the task is completed, it will be made public at an appropriate time.”
He said that the decision was in line with the one taken during the UPA government in May 2011.
Earlier, the government had earlier released data on only Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes along with economic census, automatically including them under the deprivation category
The government has been criticised by parties, including Samajwadi Party (SP), JD(U), RJD and DMK for refraining from releasing the caste-based data in its first Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC).
The SECC data released on July 3 is first in eight decades after caste census 1932.
Brushing aside suggestions that the government avoided giving the caste count in the survey report due to political reasons ahead of Bihar polls, Jaitley said that it will be good if the states, which are “politicizing” it, send their recommendations of caste consolidation at the earliest.
He said that the caste census conducted by the Registrar General of India has come out with 46 lakh categories of caste, sub-caste, different surnames in the caste and clan names, which have been sent to the states eight-nine months back for clubbing them to consolidate the caste count.
The government is keen to release the caste data at the earliest as soon as the states send the details because the committee headed by Panagariya will only then be able to classify it, Jaitley said.
The government could face a united Opposition attack in the monsoon session of Parliament on the issue with parties like Congress, CPI(M), DMK, SP, RJD and JD(U) closing ranks.
While the government has rejected the charge that not releasing the caste count has anything to do with Bihar polls, Lalu Prasad’s RJD and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), which have come together to fight the state’s Assembly election, have made a strong pitch to make it public in an apparent attempt to consolidate OBC votes.
