Dedicated commission wants caste certificate of OBC representatives

Commission seeks information from the last 60 years

Aurangabad, June 22:

A dedicated commission set up by the State government to collect empirical data of Other Backward Classes (OBC) has been directed to submit information along with caste certificates of OBC members who represented in Gram Panchayats (GPs), Panchayat Samitis (PSs) and Zilla Parishads (ZPs) for the last 60 years.

Sources said that the reservation of OBC communities in local bodies was canceled by the Supreme Court. Elections for 25 ZPs, 284 PS and municipal corporations in the State have been postponed after all political parties took a stand that elections should not be held without OBCs.

Meanwhile, the State government has set up a commission dedicated to conducting a census of the OBC community in the State. The commission was recently given a one-month extension. As per the directions, the information of all the members elected in the ZPs, PSs and GPs from 1962 till the last election was submitted to the dedicated commission within two to three months.

Apart from this, the administration had recently sent a detailed report on the percentage of OBC communities in rural areas by studying the voter list. However, several social organisations objected to the process. Against this background, the commission directed to submit the caste certificates of all the members along with the information on the number of public representatives in the OBC community in the local bodies from 1962 to 2021.

Punchnama for those with no caste certificate

Many OBC community members represented their wards prior to the implementation of reservation in local bodies. Caste certificates of such people are not available. Sources said that a panchnama will be made before the gram sevak, talathi and village panchayat and would be submitted to the commission.