It is about time India did away with the
reservation system based on caste, tribe and
backwardness (it >is well beyond the original 10
years) and started something new like government
doe-out based on >economic status of the
citizens. The system would be more equitable
that way. The voting practices in >India also
will change drastically for the better.
*** What are the chances that any such thing will
become a reality in the foreseeable future? Why
do you think no reform has come about? And why
do you think it will change?
At 7:55 PM -0700 6/4/07, Dilip/Dil Deka wrote:
All this is only for money. Isn't it? The
article describes why the demand rises for quota
in public sector jobs.
If the Meenas get it, why shouldn't the Gujjars?
Right? If the Bodos can get it, why not the
Koch-Rajbangshis?
It is about time India did away with the
reservation system based on caste, tribe and
backwardness (it is well beyond the original 10
years) and started something new like government
doe-out based on economic status of the
citizens. The system would be more equitable
that way. The voting practices in India also
will change drastically for the better.
Dilip Deka
==============================================================================
Whats government for Gurjjars?
Laveesh Bhandari
Posted online: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 at 0000
hrs <http://www.indianexpress.com/story/32694.html#>
At markets lower end, public sector jobs are
prized. To stop caste fights redefine eligibility
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Gurjjars are now demanding a greater share of
the public sector employment pie. This community
is not the first in asking for either a greater
share or a better categorisation. And with the
Rajasthan chief minister convincing them to call
off the stir, one can be certain that the
Gurjjars will not be the last in making these
demands. Some communities such as the Meenas may
have made good use of the opportunities that
came their way via reservation, but many others
are yet to do so.
Either way, this is the start of an interesting
socio-political churn. The beneficiaries will
attempt at ensuring that such benefits continue
and the non-beneficiaries will try to ensure
that they also hop onto the bandwagon. If the
two groups are competitors, then each may also
try to prevent the other from benefiting. But
why does this happen? In this era of rapid
growth and ever-increasing employment
opportunities, why should anyone want to battle
it out to get a government job?
The answer is surprisingly quite unambiguous.
Monetary and non-monetary benefits received from
government jobs are far higher than those
received by private sector employees in a range
of occupations. And this difference is so large
that it is well worth the effort of fighting
street battles for preferential treatment.
Of course, not all government or public sector
jobs pay more than similar private sector jobs.
Take, for instance, the CEOs of SBI and
Citibank. The former earns much less. And
therefore rarely will you see senior managers or
bureaucrats fighting for reservations. But the
lifetime benefits earned at the middle and lower
levels in the hierarchy are far higher in the
government than those earned in the private
sector.
This writer was part of a team that recently
conducted a survey of 7500 respondents on a
range of issues related to their expectation
from the Indian state for a study by the
National Foundation of India. The respondents
were located in rural and urban areas, belonged
to all economic and social groups, from states
spread over northern, southern, eastern and
western parts of the country. In short, a highly
representative coverage of Indians was included.
I take the liberty of using some of that primary
data.
The first and most unsurprising response was
related to overall preference for a government
job. Eighty-eight per cent of the respondents
stated that they would prefer a lower paying job
with certainty of tenure rather than a higher
paying job with uncertainties. But it is not
that government jobs are preferred only on that
count.
Government jobs are preferred on a range of
criteria: post-retirement benefits (97 per
cent), job security (97 per cent), health care
benefits (81 per cent), conducive working hours
(83 per cent), and higher incomes (58 per cent).
Moreover, even in the non-tangibles many
consider government jobs to be better: greater
job satisfaction (89 per cent), and more
respectable (92 per cent). Almost 97 per cent of
the respondents preferred a government job to a
private one. The survey had many other queries
on health care, education, housing, nutrition,
etc, and the role of the state. On no other
issue did we see such strong agreement among the
respondents.
Needless to say, government jobs have many
benefits. The first set consists of those that
are quite explicit and include the kind of
issues that respondents were queried about
health care, pensions, incomes, uncertainties.
The second set of benefits is more in the tacit
nature the chaiwala who will not charge the
policeman, the side payment for the permission
granted, the diwali gift, etc. And the third
group is of a more derivative nature the
respect and power derived from being the
representative of the state.
The long-term solution therefore is also quite
simple. Ensure that either the difference
between public and private sector jobs
emoluments reduces, or ensure that beneficiary
criteria are different.
There are some ways of doing this. The first is
to not increase public sector salaries until
private sector pay catches up. However, this
model will not work, because it may lead to a
high divergence between the private and public
sectors at the higher hierarchical levels. The
second is to create conditions whereby the
private sector salary structure rises up to that
in the government. However, the large numbers
entering the workforce create a natural barrier
for rapid wage increases at the lower
hierarchical levels. Perhaps that is why average
wages of production workers have not increased
in recent years. In other words, both these
options are politically unsustainable.
Imaginative governments have found a third way.
They have merely re-categorised some public
sector jobs. Temporary teachers, for instance,
are today being hired by the public sector
school system, whose salary levels are at par
with, if not lower than, private school teachers.
There is also a fourth way. Rather than play
around with relative salary structure of
government jobs, or re-categorise the position
as temporary, we could merely re-categorise
eligibility. That is, let the jobs be reserved
for those who are economically underprivileged.
There can then be no caste-based disagreements
on the reservation front.
The same survey also queried respondents on what
they perceived to be the best criteria for
reservation. About 31 per cent stated a
preference for reservations to be on the basis
of economic status only; an even lower
proportion of 8 per cent had a preference for it
being on the basis of social status only; and
almost 61 per cent preferred reservation to be
on the basis of some combination of caste and
economic criteria. Moreover, this response
pattern is the same across various groupings
such as ST, SC, OBCs and forward castes. The
bulk of Indians (about 91 per cent) would like
economic criteria to be used as a basis for
reservations, either individually or in
combination with some social status criteria.
Whichever way we see it, we will eventually have
to shift away from the purely caste based
reservation criteria. They promote the wrong
sort of competition, rewards the wrong set of
individuals, punishes those who deserve better,
and overall sets up an incentive mechanism where
youth will deem fit to fight it out for
achieving the underprivileged caste status.
Either that, or reduce the benefits of
government jobs.
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