Haryana Backward Classes Commission's Report approved in Cabinet Meeting | 09 May 2023

Why in News?

On 8 May 2023 in the cabinet meeting chaired by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal, the report of the Haryana Backward Classes Commission constituted to ensure political reservation rights of Backward Classes (A) in urban local bodies was approved.

Key Points:

• It is worth mentioning that the commission formed under the chairmanship of Justice Darshan Singh, former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, made a thorough investigation to assess the political backwardness of the citizens of the backward classes.
• In this report, the Backward Classes Commission observed that there is a need to provide political reservation in urban local bodies to the Backward Classes Block-A (BC-A) people who do not have adequate representation in the political set-up.
• According to this report, the post of councillor in every Municipal Corporation, Municipal Council and Municipality shall be reserved for the backward classes of citizens of Block-A and the number of such reserved seats may be in the same proportion as the total number of seats in that area.
• Backward Classes of Citizens of the total population in that Urban Local Area shall be the Urban Local Area as a percentage of half of the population of Block-A. If the decimal value is 0.5 or greater, it will be rounded off to the next higher integer. Provided that if the population of Backward Class (A) is two percent or more of the total population of the assembly area, there shall be at least one corporator belonging to Backward Class (A) in every local body.
• Eight percent of the number of posts of mayors/presidents in Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Municipalities will be reserved for Block-A backward classes of citizens.
• The Commission has said that the reservation shall not exceed in aggregate 50 per cent of the total seats reserved in favour of SCs and BCs (A) in any municipal bodies as directed by the Apex Court.
• If the number of seats thus reserved for Backward Classes (A) is added to the number of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, if their total number exceeds 50 percent of the total seats in the municipal bodies, then the seats reserved for Backward Classes (A) The number of reserved seats will be kept to such an extent that the reservation of Scheduled Caste and BC (A) does not exceed 50 percent of the total seats of the member of Municipality, Municipal Council and Municipal Corporation. For example, in an urban local area, if the population of the backward class of block A of 'A' citizens is 25 percent of the total population of that urban local area, then 12.5 percent of seats will be reserved for the backward class of block-A citizens.
• Where the Scheduled Caste population in a given Urban Local Area is 50 percent or more, the Block-A Backward Classes of citizens will not get any reservation irrespective of their percentage of the population.
• Where the Scheduled Castes population is 40 percent of the urban local body's population and there are 10 seats in the urban local area, then 4 seats will be reserved for Scheduled Castes, and the remaining one seat will be available for backward class blocks.
• Backward Classes Block-A citizens will get a seat in the municipality even if no seat is available for them as per the percentage of reservations provided their population in the concerned urban local area is not less than 2 percent.