A cabinet sub-committee chaired by state revenue minister Chandrakant Patil has unanimously recommended 16% reservation in jobs and education to the Maratha community under the Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC).  The committee, which was appointed last week, has arrived at its decision based on the report submitted by the State Backward Class Commission (SBCC) which had described Marathas as SEBC with inadequate representation in the services. Marathas constitute 33% of the state population.

A senior BJP minister said, ‘’CM Devendra Fadnavis has repeatedly clarified that the government will not touch the existing 52% quota but provide reservation to Maratha community under SEBC which will be in addition to that. The sub-committee thoroughly examined the SBCC report. Besides, it also took note of the agricultural distress and successive droughts leading to 13,365 farmer suicides between 2013 and 2018. Of these deaths, 23% farmers hailed from the Maratha community.”

He informed that the subcommittee was of the view that the proposed 16% quota will stand the test of law as Maratha under the SEBC will be entitled for reservation benefits and advantages. The minister recalled that the previous Congress-NCP government had provided 16% quota to the Maratha community based on the committee headed by former chief minister Narayan Rane. “This time the government referred the matter to the SBCC, which had submitted its report after taking into account 1.99 lakh written representations,” he said.

The committee held three meetings. It will submit its report to the state cabinet. This will pave way for the government to table the action taken report (ATR) along with the bill on November 29 proposing the quota to the Maratha community.
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The committee has Vinod Tawde, Subhash Deshmukh, Eknath Shinde, Ram Shinde, Chandrashekhar Bavankule and Vishnu Sawra