BANGALORE: The first-ever caste-wise survey of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the country after Independence will be formally launched in a week in the State, and the Department of Social Welfare is going to issue the order in a day or two.

The department, which has sent the file to the Finance Department for its concurrence for the 20-day door-to-door survey to be taken up during Dasara (October), is also constituting a committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary to monitor the exercise.

The committee, headed by the Chief Secretary, K.K. Misra, will have all the secretaries and heads of departments to guide the deputy commissioners at the district level in conducting the survey.

The Deputy Commissioner, the Assistant Commissioner and the tahsildar will lead the survey at the district, sub-division and taluk levels respectively.

The order, according to the chairman of the Karnataka Backward Classes Commission, S. Siddagangaiah, will facilitate the Government to release the money allocated in the budget. Though the preliminary work of the survey has commenced, a big chunk of the Rs. 15 crores will be released when the 58,000 enumerators will start the door-to-door survey of people belonging to other backward classes through out the State. School teachers and "C" grade employees of all the departments will be drafted for the survey work.

Another GO is being issued for constituting a high-level committee, under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary, for which the Cabinet gave its nod recently.

Panel's report

Meanwhile, a 14-member expert committee chaired by the former Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Backward Classes Commission and judge of the Karnataka High Court, K.S. Puttaswamy, to prepare the format of the questionnaire to be distributed among the people during the door-to-door survey for eliciting information from the households, individuals and in the departments and caste associations, has completed its work.

The committee will submit its report to the commission on June 17.

The occasion will be utilised to know the socio-economic-educational backwardness or the improvement in the lives of the OBCs.

That will be useful in removing the creamy layer among them and facilitate the remaining backward people to benefit from the Government's scheme of reservation as also welfare measures.

That will also help the commission to include, delete or correct the name of the castes or sub-castes or sects in the records before submitting the final report to the State Government for its consideration.

The committee comprises among others, the Director of Census, the Director of National Informatics Centre, the Director of Statistics and the Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Change Gopal Kadekodi, a sociologist and an anthropologist.

One-man commission

According to sources in the Department of Social Welfare, the Chief Minister has been requested to reconstitute the one-man commission to go into the issue of internal reservations among the Scheduled Castes. The sources said that Mr. Singh had sent the request to the Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, H.K. Patil, for consideration.

The post fell vacant after N.Y. Hanumanthappa resigned for contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Chitradurga constituency. But, H.G. Balakrishna, who was appointed to the post by the coalition government, died before assuming charge.

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