The government of Bihar led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has released the data about the caste survey. The released report contains the details of the caste-based survey and includes all the possible populations belonging to a different caste.
With this survey, Bihar became the first state to conduct and release such data. The exercise of surveying and collecting the household in January 2023. It is pertinent to mention that is not a census but a survey to collect the data of households on economic status and caste. It is to be noted that conducting the census comes under the purview of the Central not, in the domain of a state government.
Important features of Caste Survey released by Bihar Government.
The survey has reported nearly 36 percent of the population belongs to Extremely Backward Classes, 27.1 percent belong to Backward Classes, 19.7 percent are from Scheduled Castes and 1.7 percent are from Scheduled Tribes. The general population is 15.5 percent. The state’s total population is over 13.1 crore.
Other backward Classes and extremely backward Classes together constitute nearly 63 % of the total population. It is to be noted here that the total population of Bihar stands at 13.1 Crores.
As per report of caste survey, the brief of the constitutional categorisation of the population are as follows:
- OBC : 27%
- EBCs : 36.01%
- SCs : 19.65%
- STs : 1.68%
- UCs : 15.52%
Brief of the population based on the caste is as follows:
- Rajput : 3.45%
- Brahmin : 3.67%
- Bhumihar : 2.89%
- Yadav : 14.26 %
- Kurmi : 2.87%
- Teli : 2.81%, etc.,
The survey also reported that the Yadav community to which Deputy Chief Minister- Tejashwi Yadav belongs, is the largest sub-group and it account for 14.27 per cent of all OBC categories.
Impact of Caste Survey released by Bihar Government.
This report has the potential to change the discourse and political landscape across the country. It will likely pave the way for calls to increase quotas for OBCs, which are currently capped at 27 percent. The general election for Lok Sabha is going to be held in 2024. It would be interesting to see the impact on the upcoming election.
Bihar Dy Chief Minister responded to the release of the report on X (Twitter) as under:
Many political parties especially the opposition are raising for the caste based survey for a national. It has been a key demand of the mega I.N.D.I.A bloc. However, at present, there are also divisions within the group of opposition on this count after the Trinamool Congress raised objections.
To conduct a caste survey, a decision was taken by the Bihar government in June 2022. The Chief Minister of Bihar – Mr. Nitish Kumar has repeatedly said the state is not conducting a census but only data on economic status and caste being collected for targeted development initiatives.
The Chief Minister has repeatedly said the state is not conducting a census but only data on economic status and caste being collected for targeted development initiatives in addition to the advantage under various schemes of central and state government.
