The Cabinet sub-committee, headed by senior minister H K Patil, constituted to frame rules for the implementation of Article 371(J) in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region is facing hurdles, particularly with regard to deciding on domicile and the criteria for claiming reservation in employment and education.
Highly-placed sources told Express on Saturday that the sub-committee was to hold its last meeting on July 9 to finalise the draft rules for implementation of Article 371(J) and to submit it to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on July 11, a day ahead of the state Budget. Though the sub-committee held its sitting in Bangalore on July 9, it failed to come to a conclusion and postponed its meeting to July 12. However, even in the meeting held on Friday evening, the sub-committee could not finalise its stand on the two issues.
Sources said the committee has received suggestions from many to fix domicile on the basis of birth. It means that if the candidate who wants to avail the benefit of reservation under Article 371 (J), he/she should be born in Hyderabad-Karnataka region and the parents should be residents of this region for more than 15 years.
But many have objected to this. According to the sources, questions have been raised on denying benefits to a child born in this region whose parents lived elsewhere earlier. “A point has also been raised that it is common practice for the first delivery of a woman to take place in her paternal home. What is the fate of children born outside the region, even though their fathers and forefathers have always been native to Hyderabad-Karnataka region?” a source said.
Government employees native to the Hyderabad-Karnataka region made a strong plea to Sanjeev Kumar, Principal Secretary, Department of Personnel Reforms and Administration, that if a criterion of 10 years compulsory education of the children in the region is followed, all their children will be deprived of reservation as they are in transferable jobs. “We need to solve these problems. After that, there should be no difficulty in fixing seats in professional colleges under Article 371(J),” the source said.
It is learnt that the sub-committee has no difficulty in fixing 100 per cent reservation with regard to employment for Class 3 and Class 4 posts. But it has not come to any conclusion on reservation for Class 1 and Class 2 posts.