New Delhi: For the first time in independent India, Census 2021 will collect data on Other Backwards Castes (OBCs), a move considered politically significant ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The then V.P. Singh government had announced 27 per cent reservation for OBCs based on the Mandal Commission recommendation, which was broadly prepared on the basis of the country’s last castes data collected in the 1931 census.
The disclosure of the decision to collect the OBC data came after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh reviewed the preparation for the Census 2021. “It is envisaged to collect data on OBCs for the first time,” a Home Ministry spokesperson said.
The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), a wing of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, had announced a sample survey report on the country’s population in 2006 and suggested that the OBC population in the country is around 41 per cent of the total population.
