Bihar government has released the data of the caste-based survey. As per the caste survey report, among the total population size of 13,07,25,310, Bihar has 63 per cent people in Other Backward Class (OBC) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) category.
The survey data has found Scheduled Caste (SC) constitute over 19 per cent of the state’s population, while 1 per cent people are falling under Scheduled Tribes (ST).
As per the report:
OBC – 27.12%
EBC: 36.01%
SC: 19.65%
ST: 1.68%
Unreserved: 15.52%
Total population size: 13,07,25,310
Male: 6,41,31,992
Female: 6,11,38,460
Others: 82,836
Male to Female ratio: 1000:953
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar took to microblogging platform X and congratulated the team behind the survey.
“Today, on the auspicious occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, the data of caste-based census conducted in Bihar has been published. Many congratulations to the entire team engaged in the work of caste-based enumeration. The proposal for caste-based enumeration was passed unanimously in the Legislature,” Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said in his post.
Patna High Court in August upheld Bihar’s caste survey. The first phase of this two-part survey, under which a household counting exercise was taken up, was conducted by the Bihar government in January this year.
A Bench of Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice Partha Sarthy in August delivered the verdict on several petitions challenging the caste-based survey.
All petitions challenging Bihar government’s caste-based survey were dismissed. With the dismissal of all petitions, the interim stay on caste survey in Bihar which was granted by Patna HC order of May 4, got vacated.
The Patna High Court had on May 4 this year stayed the caste survey with immediate effect, asking the authorities to preserve the data collected so far. The court had noted that the survey was a census in the garb of a survey, the likes of which only the union government had the exclusive power to carry out under the Census Act, 1948.
The decision to conduct the caste survey was taken by the then NDA government in Bihar headed by Nitish Kumar in June last year. The JD(U) leader later dumped the BJP and formed the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ government with RJD, Congress and others.
The state government started its caste-based survey in Bihar on January 7. The project cost was estimated to be Rs 500 crore.
CM Nitish Kumar on the Caste Census Report
Addressing the reporters on Monday, Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar said that an all party meet has been called to discuss more details about the report on Tuesday at 3:30 pm.
The Chief Minister expressed confidence that the caste survey conducted by his government, findings of which were released on Monday, will provide an impetus for a nationwide census of all social groups.
He also said, “Yes, the survey has provided an estimate of the population of all sections of the society, many of which were not counted during the census. It has also come out with a fresh estimate of the Scheduled Castes. We can see a slight increase in their population compared with a decade ago”.
How Leaders Reacted to the Caste Survey Report?
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his take on the recently released caste census of Bihar. He said that it is important to know the caste statistics of India.
