Representation of SCs and STs in public sector employment: status, constraints and suggestions

In India Scheduled castes (SC) and Tribes (ST) are the most deprived groups, who are socially, economically and politically marginalized and excluded since time immemorial. They are facing different kinds of problems like exclusion, discrimination and imbalance in terms of access to capital assets, employment, education, political participation and exclusion other spheres. Hence, the framers of the constitution and other development thinkers have turned to practices of reservation or affirmative action for these discriminated sub-groups in addition to general pro-poor policies. Among these reservations in Employment has become crucial one and proved a catalyst of affirmative instruments. However,. As per data, there were still 54701 jobs of SCs and STs unfilled due to numerous reasons. According to the Sachar Committee Report (2006), SC/STs are heavily under-represented in university employment. While 5.4 percent of the SCs and the STs were found in teaching posts, for non-teaching, their combined strength was 17 percent of the total staff. Hence, it clearly reveals that SCs and ST's are still under represented in public sector jobs especially in higher educational institutions and further thousands of jobs reserved for these communities still pending unfilled

Data also reveals that the SCs and STs have done quite well in Central civil services, almost nearing their stipulated quota. However, this has been possible because of their strong showing in lower-end jobs. They are still far short of their ratio in jobs under Groups A and B. Particularly, the SCs continue to overcrowd the Group D jobs which are not considered as ‘socially respectable’, thereby reinforcing the caste-occupation linkage. There is also argument that SCs and ST's do well under the entrance system which is run through a relatively impartial agency like Union Public Service Commission. A close scrutiny of implementation of job reservation makes it amply clear that tremendous progress has been made by the socially disadvantaged groups, despite that there are still wide variations among these segments and categories of jobs. Keeping the above facts in view this paper has the following objectives; 1. To examine the employment status among the SCs and the STs in the public sector in India; 2. Find out the reasons for the underrepresentation of the SC's and ST's in the public sector jobs; 3. To suggest suitable policy measures. This study undertakes an analysis three categories of employment under the public sector in India they are, Central Government services; Public sector undertakings and nationalized banks. The paper is based on the secondary sources of data and it was gathered from publications of, Annual Reports of various Ministries of Government of India for different time periods, journals, books etc.

REPRESENTATION OF SCs AND STs IN PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYMENT: STATUS, CONSTRAINTS AND SUGGESTIONS