*** What are the chances that any such thing will become a reality in the
foreseeable future?
DD: By foreseeable future do you mean one year or ten years? If one year, no
chance. If ten years, yes, there is a good chance.
***Why do you think no reform has come about?
DD: There has been no reform in this area because the nation had been busy
building its economic infrastructure, albeit haphazardly. There was status quo
in areas other than economy. The reservation system of the fifties was accepted
without any question.
Now the attention of the media has turned towards such reforms. If they stay
at it, the reforms will come. Do they have the dedicated media and personnel
for it? I don't know, not being there in the middle of things. The dedication
will decide whether it takes five years or ten to bring about changes.
***And why do you think it will change?
DD: Because more and more of the Indian citizens are seeing the ill effects
of the reservation system. The inappropriate use of the system in Rajasthan and
the violence due to it put the spotlight on it. The resistance of the private
sector to the reservation system is another indicator of people's desire for a
change. The energy spent in implementing an inefficient way of bringing
equality to people is mind boggling.
===================================================================
Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >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
At markets lower end, public sector jobs are prized. To stop caste fights
redefine eligibility
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Trends & trivia in India storyIts not hammer vs sickleThe devil is in the
leakageWages of the youngNo homes away from home
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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