MPs for Parliamentary Committee to ensure reservation to OBCs

New Delhi, May 10 (UNI) Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee was today urged to constitute a Parliamentary Committee for OBCs to ensure reservation for them in all the government departments.

In a letter written to Mr Chatterjee, MPs headed by Mr V Hanumantha Rao, convenor, Parliamentary Forum of OBC MPs, today said the Committee should be headed by an OBC MP as the goal of social justice could not be achieved unless it was properly monitored by representatives of the people.

''This is in consonance with the Common Minimum Programme adopted by the UPA Government that has committed to adhere six basic principles of governance that includes providing full equality of opportunity, particularly in education and employment to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and religious minorities'', he said.

According to Mr Rao, even though the reservation for SC/ST has been there since 1952, statistics revealed that in the upper echelons of power their percentage was still meagre due to ''non implemenation and wrong interpretation'' of the reservation policy.

Moreover, the officials heading the departments mostly belonged to the upper castes and they were against the spirit of reservation policy, he alleged.

He said the reservation policy for OBCs, which came into effect in 1993, would remain only a slogan if not monitored effectively.

UNI