KOTTAYAM: The Nair Service Society (NSS) has termed the recommendations made by the three-member panel appointed by the Centre for ensuring reservation benefits for the economically poor among the forward castes as “historical” and “a good sign in the social realm of the entire country.”
NSS general secretary P K Narayana Panicker and secretary G Sukumaran Nair said that it is heartening to understand that the panel has made a recommendation for considering the economically poor among forward castes and those who are not coming under the income tax net as equivalent to OBCs.
“It is also learnt that the panel has recommended a mechanism to identify the economically poor among the forward castes and ensure specific welfare programmes for jobs, education, health and housing schemes. Measures to sanction low-interest housing loans for the identified category and a constitutional amendment for ensuring reservation in the jobs and education front have been mooted by the panel,” they said.
The State and Central Governments have been told to take legal steps for the follow-up exercise as well. The recommendations are a ray of hope for the lakh of poor people among the forward castes, who were sidelined and denied justice since independence, they said.
The NSS had submitted its stance officially while the panel members collected evidence in one of their visits to the state in 2008, even when some quarters turned their back against the commission, the leaders said.