Chandigarh, March 4
The Punjab Cabinet tonight decided to include Jats in the Backward Classes category. With this, Jats will be the 69th community to be included in the category.

Former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had attacked the Badal government for not taking up the Jat quota issue with the Centre. Consequently, Jats from Punjab were not included in the recently declared Central OBC quota list, he said.

The Centre had recently announced its decision to extend OBC status to Jats of Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Delhi.

The exclusion of Jats from Punjab in the OBC category sparked a political slugfest in the state. Capt Amarinder Singh, who is also All-India Jat Mahasabha president, said only those states that had presented their case to the Centre were given the benefit of Jat quota and the Punjab Government’s failure to do so had deprived the community of the benefit.

Denying allegations, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said the Congress-led Centre was biased against the state and that was the reason why Punjabi Jats were not allowed the reservation benefit.

He said the state government had written several times to the Centre, but to no avail.

Tonight’s state Cabinet decision will practically have no impact on Jats’ recruitment in state government jobs. Though over one lakh posts are vacant, these cannot be filled as the state government had abolished all entry-level posts in 2002 and decided against filling any vacant posts lying vacant for more than three months.

Since 2002, all recruitments are being made on contractual basis. These recruitments have been done mostly in the Education and Health Departments, under centrally sponsored schemes — where the Centre pays a major part of the employees’ salaries.

Sajjan Singh, chairman of the Punjab Subordinate Services Federation and convener of the sangharsh committee of all state government employees associations, said the state government did not allow any reservation in contractual appointments. He said, “Since contractual employees are not regularised, the reserved categories will not get any benefit.”

He said though over one lakh Central Government jobs were offered every year, Jats from Punjab would not get any reservation benefit unless they were declared OBCs by the Centre — which might not be possible in near future.