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The Government-appointed committee has submitted to the Supreme Court that the annual family income of ₹8 lakh is “a reasonable” threshold to determine if someone belongs to economically weaker sections to avail 10% reservations in admissions and jobs.

OBCs V/s EWS

• In EWS family includes the candidate, his/her parents, under-18 siblings, spouse, and his/her under-18 children, whereas for creamy the OBC family includes the candidate and his parents and minor children.
• For OBC household gross income should be above Rs 8 lakh per annum for three consecutive years, whereas to be eligible for EWS reservation, the beneficiary household income has to be below Rs 8 lakh in the preceding financial year.

Challenges associated with Income criteria

• The Court had said that the OBC category is socially and educationally backward, and had therefore additional impediments to overcome, and had asked whether it “would... be arbitrary to provide the same income limit both for the OBC and EWS categories”.
• The committee does not present any data on the estimated number of EWS persons in the population based on this.
• There is a regional & social difference in purchase power which are not factored in. It was suggested that all differences in purchasing power across urban/rural regions and per capita income/GDP across States must be considered to arrive at this number.
• If available consumer expenditure surveys such as the 2011-12 NSSO report, Key Indicators of Household Consumer Expenditure are any indication, a bulk of the population will be eligible for reservations.

Way Forward

The validity of the 103rd Constitution Amendment, through which the EWS quota was introduced in 2019, is in any case still before a Constitution Bench. But the apex court must seek more clarity on the criteria adopted by the Government committee to set the income limit for identifying the EWS sections eligible for reservations.