Crisis-hit Jharkhand cabinet okays 1932 cut-off year to define locals; 77 percent reservation in jobs

Ranchi, Sept 14: The Jharkhand cabinet on Wednesday approved a domicile policy based on land records of 1932 land records and granted 77 per cent reservation in the state government jobs for the socially and economically weaker sections of the society in the state.

“The cabinet approved the ‘Jharkhand definition of local persons and for extending the consequential social, cultural and other benefits to such local persons bill, 2022’,” said Cabinet Secretary Vandana Dadel after the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Hemant Soren.

Facing the worst political crisis of his life, Soren also led an ambitious decision that promises to reserve 77 per cent of the seats in state government jobs. In both the cases, the state will be requesting the Centre for inclusion of the bills in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

Notably, Hemant Soren is facing disqualification from the Election Commission for holding office-of-profit. The issue is pending with Governor Ramesh Bais.

As per the proposed domicile policy, people who have their names or their ancestors’ name in the land records of 1932 or before will be considered as a local inhabitant of Jharkhand. Besides, landless people or those who have lost the khatiyan (land record) or the record is illegible; they will have to be identified by the respective gram sabha. The cabinet has decided to send both the bills to the Centre, Dadel said.

In the proposed job reservation policy, local people of Scheduled Caste (SC) community will have a quota of 12 per cent, Scheduled Tribe (ST) will have 28 per cent, Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) 15 per cent, Other Backward Caste (OBC) 12 per cent, and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) (excluding other reserved categories) 10 per cent.