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

Abstract

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