Backward Classes to get quota in ULBs now
Chandigarh, May 8
The Haryana Cabinet, which met under Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today, accepted the Haryana Backward Classes Commission report on the proportion of reservation for backward Classes (BCs) in municipalities.
The commission, headed by former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice Darshan Singh (retd), conducted the empirical inquiry for the assessment of the political backwardness of the Backward Classes. In the assessment, the commission found that the Backward Classes of Citizens, Block-A (BC-A) were not adequately represented in the political setup, so they required the support of reservation in the election of the local bodies/municipalities.
The percentage of seats reserved for the BC-A in a municipality shall be one-half of the percentage of the population of Backward Classes Block-A to the total population in that urban local area. In case the decimal value is 0.5 or more, it shall be rounded off to the next higher integer.
Further, 8 per cent of the number of offices of mayors or presidents shall be reserved for the Backward Classes Block-A in the municipal corporations, municipal councils and municipal committees. It shall be rounded off to the next higher integer in case the decimal value is 0.5 or more.
The commission has stated that as per the direction of the apex court, the reservation shall not exceed the aggregate of 50 per cent of the total seats reserved in favour of Scheduled Castes and BC (A) taken together in a particular urban local body (ULB).
If reservation exceeded 50 per cent of the total number of seats in the given local body, the number of seats reserved for Backward Classes (A) shall be restricted to such largest number so that the total reservation doesn’t exceed 50 per cent.
The commission has cited examples for clarification. In an urban local area, if the population of the Backward Classes Block A is 25 per cent of the total population of that urban local area then 12.5 percent of seats shall be reserved for them.
Where in a given urban local area the population of the Scheduled Castes is 50 per cent or more, the Backward Classes Block-A will not get any reservation, irrespective of the percentage of their population.
Where the population of the Scheduled Castes is 40 per cent of the population of the urban local body and there are 10 seats in the urban local area, four seats will be reserved for the Scheduled Castes, while the remaining one seat shall be available for reservation to the Backward Classes Block-A.
BC (A) ‘were not adequately represented’
The commission found that the Backward Classes of Citizens, Block-A (BC-A) were not adequately represented in the political setup, so they required the support of reservation in the election of the local bodies/municipalities. The percentage of seats reserved for the BC-A in a municipality shall be one-half of the percentage of the population of Backward Classes Block-A to the total population in that urban local area.
