Aggarwals, Punjabis, too, seek quota
Yoginder Gupta
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 1
Ever since the Haryana Government has constituted the Backward Classes Commission, a race has begun among various communities living in the state to get their name included in the list of Backward Classes.
Even those communities, which have been traditionally considered as forward, are representing to the commission to stake their claim to the status of a Backward Class. In the past few days, the Bishnois and the Brahmins are some of the communities, which have submitted memorandums to the commission.
Today the Aggarwals, generally considered as a trading community, and the Punjabis, known as a hard-working community, approached the commission to seek reservation in the category of Backward Classes.
In a representation submitted by Kulbhushan Goyal, president of the Haryana unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Aggarwal Sammelan, the Aggarwals opposed any reservation based on caste. The community said the reservation should be based on economic criteria.
The memorandum said that under Article 15 and Article 16 of the Constitution, special provision could be made for advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for reservation in jobs, if in the opinion of the state, that class was not adequately represented in the services under the state.
It further suggested that only persons or families engaged in business having a turnover of less than Rs 20 lakh per annum; farmers having less than 2 acre of agricultural land; non-income tax payees; widows, except those who were income tax payees; and physically challenged persons should be considered economically backward.
Urging the commission to include economically weaker sections of the Aggarwal community among the Backward Classes, the sammelan said the reservation in jobs should be confined to one member in a family and should not be extended to the same family or its blood relations again and again.
It further added that if the percentage of various castes getting jobs in Haryana was compared to that in adjoining states like Delhi and UP, a strong bias would be revealed in favour of one particular caste in Haryana. In a separate memorandum submitted by the Haryana Punjabi Mahasabha through its president and general secretary, Ashok Mehta and Surinder Juneja, respectively, it said the Punjabi community was uprooted from Pakistan in 1947. By the dint of its hard work, the community, which constituted about 35 per cent of the state’s population, was able to re-establish itself in new environs in which it found itself. Still many sections of the community remained economically backward and, hence, should be given reservation in jobs and educational institutions.
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