Notably, the Bihar Assembly unanimously passed a bill to increase reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Extremely Backward Classes in state jobs and educational institutions to 65 per cent. This is well past the Supreme Court‘s 50 per cent cap.

The bill now remains to be signed off by Governor Rajendra Arlekar before it is law.

On Tuesday, CM Nitish Kumar had said, “The quota for SCs and STs together stands at 17%. It should be raised to 22%. Likewise, the reservation for OBCs should also be hiked from the current 50% to 65%.”

Bills providing for the same in educational institutions and government jobs, drafted in the backdrop of a comprehensive caste survey conducted by the Nitish Kumar government, were passed unanimously through voice vote.

According to the bills, the quota for STs will be doubled, from one to two per cent, while for SCs it will be raised from 16 per cent to 20 per cent.

For EBCs, the quota will be 25 per cent, up from 18 per cent, while for the OBCs, it will rise from 12 per cent to 15 per cent.

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Bihar Caste -based Survey report

The Bihar caste survey report cited that more than a third of families inhabiting Bihar were living in poverty, making do with a monthly income of ₹6,000 or less

It further acknowledged considerable poverty among the upper castes, though the percentage was, predictably, much higher among backward classes, Dalits and tribals.

“The state was home to about 2.97 crore families, out of which more than 94 lakhs (34.13%) were poor.”

Another important finding was that more than 50 lakh Biharis were living outside the state in search of livelihood or better education opportunities.

Those earning a living in other states numbered around 46 lakhs while another 2.17 lakhs have found greener pastures abroad.

Those pursuing studies in other states numbered about 5.52 lakhs while about 27,000 were doing the same abroad.

There are nearly 80 lakh graduates in Bihar, which is around 6.11 per cent of the total population, the Bihar caste based survey report further revealed. According to the report, 24,534 people belonging to Other Reported Classes (ORC) have the maximum number of graduates, accounting for 13.45 per cent of their total population.

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Updated: 09 Nov 2023, 03:42 PM IST