Pressure has been mounting on the Odisha government to conduct a caste-based census in the state after the Bihar government released its caste-based survey report.
The Opposition rejected the survey conducted by the Odisha State Commission for Backward Classes (OSCBC) from May 1 to July 10.
Former Union minister Srikant Jena said: “The mandate of the government to the commission was to get the survey done on the socio-economic condition of the backward classes. The government did not ask it to go for a caste census. The survey which was undertaken by the commission was only to ascertain the social and educational conditions of backward-class people but it's not a caste census. Odisha government’s notification is very clear about this. No one can conclude the population data of OBC (Other Backward Classes)/SEBC (Socially and Economically Backward Classes) communities in the state in the absence of a caste census.”
Jena said: “No enumeration done to ascertain the exact population of the socially and educationally backward classes. There is a need to undertake a thorough exercise of counting the entire population based on caste. We are demanding a caste-based census like that of the Bihar model. The Odisha government should make the commission’s report public.”
Jena also wrote a letter to the commission to this effect. The report is yet to be made public though the commission has submitted the report to the government.
Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Sarat Pattnayak said: “The state government should conduct a caste-based census. If the Naveen Patnaik government fails to do it, we will undertake the exercise once we form the government in the state. The survey should be done on the lines of Bihar. We need a full-fledged caste census.”
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MLA Debi Prasad Mishra said: “The commission’s report is being studied. What is best would be done by the government for the OBC and others. It’s a government for the people only.”
The OSCBC’s survey was done in hybrid mode in which the family head was asked to report data of individual members by visiting the anganwadi centres.
Sources said according to the survey, Odisha has 1.94 crore people belonging to the OBC. The OBC population comes around 39.31 per cent of the state’s population. Out of 1.94 crores, 98.58 lakhs are men and 96 lakhs are women. Besides, 27,239 belong to the third gender. Most of their condition is not well.
Medical student hangs self
A second-year student of Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) was found hanging in her hostel here on Friday.
The deceased has been identified as Moubani Das. She hails from Haripal village in Hooghly district of Bengal.
Police seized the mobile phone of the deceased and sent the body for post-mortem. A case of unnatural death was registered in the local police station. “Investigation is going on. The exact cause of her death is yet to be ascertained,” the police said.
The police are trying to find out whether Moubani was in a relationship with anyone or not. “We lost our daughter. She had talked to her mother over the phone only a few hours back. But we are yet to know what prompted her to take the extreme step,” said Moubani's father.
