Ahead
of the Lok Sabha polls, the government on Thursday cleared a
proposal for setting up the
much- awaited Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC),
a statutory body
to check discrimination of minority communities in jobs and education. The
Justice Sachar Committee, which went into the socio-economic
backwardness of Muslims, had recommended setting up of such a panel. The
proposal got the nod of the Union Cabinet on Thursday.
EOC
will also deal with grievances like denial of accommodation or buying rights to
minorities in housing societies. The recommendation for setting up of EOC was
made during UPA-I itself and the Minority Affairs Ministry had begun the
process to establish an omnibus body that could include all sections as soon as
the UPA II government came to power.
A
jumbo Group of Ministers, chaired by A K Antony, was set up to look into the
matter as disputes arose about the location and powers of the panel with various
other national commissions and ministries complaining that the proposed mandate
of EOC would be encroaching upon their mandate. The GoM had later mandated that
EOC will deal exclusively with minorities. EOC's mandate is to ensure that no
minority community is discriminated against on religious grounds by redressing
complaints.
It
has to make binding recommendations that people from minority communities find
adequate representation in government employment or educational institutions. The Sachar Committee that studied the
socio-economic condition of the minorities in India had noted that though
Muslims constituted 18.5 per cent of the population, their representation in
bureaucracy was just about 2.5 per cent.
