HYDERABAD: Defending the Telangana government’s decision to implement the “creamy layer” for Backward Classes for reservations in government jobs, National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) chairman Justice V Eswaraiah said here on Friday that there was nothing new in the circular.
Terming the circular as a mere clarification of the existing guidelines, he said people have misunderstood the guidelines.
“There is nothing new in the guidelines issued by the Telangana government. People are reacting without trying to understand the guidelines. They are in place from 2013, the government just gave a clarification saying that agricultural and salary income should not be taken into account in identifying creamy layer. This clarification is for the benefit of the people, because many officers are denying non-creamy layer certificates to eligible candidates by considering agricultural and salary income,” said Eswaraiah.
“Unless the applicant receives an additional income of `6 lakh from other sources, say shares, rents etc., he cannot be placed under the non-creamy layer category,” he clarified.
Regarding his recommendation to the Union government, to raise the income limit for creamy layer to make more job aspirants among the Backward Classes eligible for quotas, Eswaraiah said that the reservation is not completely utilised due to the present income criteria. “We have asked the Centre to raise the income limit for creamy layer from `6 lakh to `15 lakh. Due to the existing guidelines, 27 per cent reservation is not properly utilised. In order to benefit more number of BC’s, we suggested the government to increase the income limit to `15 lakh for government employees. As private employees do not get pension and other benefits, the income limit should be `30 lakh,” he added.
Eswaraiah said that before the Central government implements his new suggestions, the Telangana government should give a relook to the creamy layer policy. He opined that the caste and creamy layer certificate should be separated and as suggested by the parliamentary committee, the citizens should be asked to renew only their creamy layer certificate every third year.
The Backward Classes Welfare department would change the format of application for the creamy layer certificate, said principal secretary T Radha. “We would remove the column seeking information about agricultural and salary income from the creamy layer certificate, because those two are not required to classify a person. Having those two columns is creating more confusion as officials are not issuing certificates to many eligible candidates,” she explained.
Replying to a query on the inclusion of the said column in the application form, which created confusion, the principal secretary said there was no clarity about the issue. “Actually, even we were not sure till the government clarified a couple of days ago. Now that we got some clarity on the issue, we decided to remove them,” she added.