Forward castes constitute highest chunk of government staff in Kerala: Report
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Hindu forward classes constitute roughly 22% of the government employees in the state, figures tabled in the assembly have shown. The data was provided in response to a question by P Ubaidulla of the Indian Union Muslim League.
Of the 5.45 lakh permanent government employees, staff from forward Hindu communities such as Nair, Menon, Kurup and so on constitute 1.08 lakh.
While there were 7,112 employees from the Brahmin community, 2,765 employees belonged to Ambalavasi, Warrier categories.
The share of Ezhava community, with 1.15 lakh government employees, stood at 21.09%. There were 73,774 employees from the Muslim community, constituting 13.52% of the total government employees.
As per data tabled in the assembly, there are 73,714 forward Christian employees in the state service, denoting a share of 21.01%.
The representation of Latin Catholic employees was 22,542 with an overall share of 4.13%.
The data also showed that there were 2,399 employees who converted to Christianity and another 929 employees belonging to the Nadar Christian community. If all four sections of Christian employees are taken into account, they constitute 18.25% of the total government staff.
While there were 51,783 employees from the Scheduled Caste, the number of Scheduled Tribe employees stood at 10,513. Another 955 employees said they did not belong to any category.
According to Ubaidulla, the data shows that different socio-religious sections and communities do not have proportionate representation in government jobs.
“Earlier, the Narendran Commission Report had recommended that the backlog in appointments should be filled to address this disparity. The present data shows a major disparity in this regard. The government should take urgent measures,” the MLA told TNIE.
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