The Backward Classes Welfare Department, a department under the government is serving towards sustainable development of the people who belong to the SC, ST, and Other Backward Classes of different states of India. The Department’s main aim is to improve the quality of life of these socially and economically backward classes and enhance the capability of the people belonging to these communities so that they can be very much part & parcel of the mainstream of society.
Backward Classes Welfare Department – Functions
The main function of backward classes are:
- Reinforce infrastructure and creation of community assets for integrated development of the backward classes.
- Progression and implementation of educational schemes including training for improvement of skills in them.
- Granting caste certificates and implementation of reservation rules in services, posts, and educational institutions.
- Execution of schemes including income generation schemes for financial upliftment.
- Cultural and social development of the backward classes.
Constitutional Provisions
- Provisions associating to Socially & Educationally Backward Classes (OBCs).
- Provisions associating to Persons with Disability and the Old.
- Provisions associating to Prevention of Substance Abuse.
- Some General Provisions.
- Twelfth Schedule.
- Eleventh Schedule.
- Seventh Schedule.
- Provisions associated with Social Justice and Empowerment.
- Provisions relating to SCs.
Let’s discuss these provisions below.
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1. Provisions associating to socially & Educationally Backward Classes (OBCs)
The Constitution (One Hundred and Second Amendment) Act, 2018, introduced Article 338B which gives for a Commission for the socially and educationally backward classes to be recognized as the National Commission for Backward Classes.
2. Provisions associating to Persons with Disability and the Old
The Persons with Disabilities (Protection of Rights, Equal Opportunities, and Full Participation) Act, 1995 had come into implementation on February 7, 1996. It is a vital step that assures equal opportunities for the people with disabilities and their full participation in nation-building. The Act provisions for both the preventive and promotional features of rehabilitation like vocational training, research, education, reservation, and employment, and manpower development, rehabilitation of persons with disability, unemployment allowance for the disabled, special insurance scheme for the disabled employees, creation of a barrier-free environment, and establishment of homes for persons with severe disability, etc.
3. Provisions associating to Prevention of Substance Abuse
The Scheme of Assistance for the Prevention of Substance Abuse is being implemented for identification, counseling, treatment, and rehabilitation of addicts through voluntary and other eligible organizations.
4. Some General Provisions
The State shall not favor against any citizen only of sex, religion, place of birth, race, caste, or any of them.
No citizen shall, on spots only of sex, religion, place of birth, race, caste, or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction, or condition about the access to shops, hotels, public restaurants, and places of public entertainment or the use of wells, roads, bathing ghats, tanks, and places of public resort controlled wholly or partly out of State funds or applied to the use of the general public.
5. Twelfth Schedule
The twelfth Schedule includes the following:
- Safeguarding the benefits of weaker sections of society, including the mentally retarded and handicapped.
- Slum improvement and up-gradation.
- Solid waste management, public health, sanitation, and conservancy.
- Urban poverty alleviation.
6. Eleventh Schedule
- Education, including primary and secondary schools.
- Technical training and vocational education.
- Adult and non-formal education.
- Health and sanitation, including primary health centers, hospitals, and dispensaries.
- Family welfare.
- Women and child development.
- Welfare of the weaker sections, and in specific Scheduled
- Social welfare including the well-being of the mentally retarded and handicapped
- Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
- Public distribution system.
7. Seventh Schedule
The list I – Union List
- Manufacture, cultivation, and sale for export, of opium.
- Any other matter not defined in List II or List III including any tax not defined in either of those Lists.
List II – State List
- Intoxicating liquors, the production, purchase, production, possession, transport, and sale of intoxicating liquors.
- Relief of the disabled and unemployable.
List III – Concurrent List
- Vagrancy, nomadic and migratory tribes.
- Lunacy and mental deficiency, including places for the treatment of lunatics and mentally deficient.
- Drugs and poisons, directed to the provisions of entry 59 of List I concerning drugs.
- Economic and social planning.
- Social insurance and social security unemployment, and employment.
8. Provisions associated with Social Justice and Empowerment, as a whole
Prohibition of violated labor and traffic in human beings
- Traffic in human beings and other alike forms of forced labor are banned and any violation of this provision shall be an offense punishable by the law.
- The state shall not make any prejudice on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class, or any of them.
Prohibition of employment of children
- Under the age of 14 years, no child shall be employed to work in any factory
9. Provisions relating to SCs
Special Provisions relating to certain classes
The President may involve any State or Union Territory, and where it is a State, after discussion with the Governor thereof, by public notification, specify the castes, races or tribes or parts of or groups in castes, races or tribes which shall for this Constitution be deemed to be Scheduled Castes about that State or Union Territory, as the case may be.
Parliament may by law exclude from the list of Scheduled
Castes specified in a notification declared under clause (1) any caste, tribe or part of or group within any caste, race or tribe, but save as previous a notification announced under the said clause shall not be altered by any following notification
Summing It Up!
The Backward Classes Welfare Department serves for the cultural, financial, and social welfare of the person who belongs to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Other Backward Class (OBC) in the State. It is important to look after the welfare of the most underprivileged sections of the society specifically the Schedule Tribes, Scheduled Castes, Backward Classes and Minorities, and the responsibility of leading all-round development of these sections. It intends the effort of the state to continue the plans and programs with greater emphasis so that the Scheduled Tribes, the Scheduled Castes, the Backward Castes, and Minorities could reap the benefit of the programs.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What is meant by backward classes?
Ans. Backward classes who are economically and socially deprived and face or may have faced discrimination on account of the birth. They typically include the flats the scheduled castes.
Q2. Who comes under the backward class?
Ans. Backward Classes are those classes of citizens other than the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as may be defined by the Central Government in the lists prepared by the Government of India from time to time for plans of making provision for the reservation.
Q3. What is the most backward class?
Ans. Communities that were found to be as disadvantaged as the SCs but could not be declared as Scheduled Castes (SCs), because of the non-existence of untouchability factor were classified as Most Backward Classes (MBCs).
Q4. What is backward class A and B?
Ans. The OBC quota is classified into two categories. Backward Classes (A) category, including a majority of groups under the state OBC list, is granted 80% reservation, while Backward Classes (B) category, with dominant groups like Lingayats, Vokkaligas, and Bunts, is granted the balance 20% reservation.
Q5. What are the problems of backward classes in education?
Ans. Depend on some elements of backwardness such as illiteracy and lack of education poverty, exploitation of labor, non-representation in services, and untouchability, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are listed in the Constitution while the third group i.e. Other Backward Class is unlisted.
