As admission to engineering, medical and management courses for the new academic session is going on in full swing, the Government of Odisha has not initiated any action to provide 27 per cent reservation to students belonging to other backward classes (OBCs). Former union minister Srikant Jena and State Unit President of Samajwadi Party, Rabindra Nath Behera, have taken up the issue with the chairman of National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) Hansraj Gangaram Ahir and sought his intervention to ensure the quota is provided to OBC students.
Noting that OBC and Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC) communities comprise 54 per cent of the state's population, Jena in a letter to the commission, said that the government is not providing reservations to these two categories despite the issue of notification by the central government in 2005. Besides, only 11.25 per cent of the reservation is provided to OBCs and SEBCs as against 27 per cent, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
In a separate letter to Ahir, Behera said OBC students are losing around 480 medical and 19,000 engineering seats every year due to the apathy. The OBC candidates have already lost more than five lakh government jobs due to partial implementation reservation, he alleged.
The state government is in the process of filling up 2.27 lakh vacant posts in a phased manner. OBC candidates will be deprived of around 35,000 jobs if the state government will not give them their full quota, he added.
