Centre hiding data on unfilled posts meant for SC/STs, OBCs: RTI activist
Against the backdrop of a national debate on caste-based equity, Nayak points to systemic failures in transparency and inclusivity within the country's bureaucracy.
Nayak posed RTI queries based on a December 2024 Parliamentary committee report on the welfare of SC/STs, which criticised the government for persistent backlog in vacancies and the near-total absence of SC/ST representation in decision-making roles across public sector undertakings (PSUs), ministries and banks. The report rejected claims of a "lack of suitable candidates" as baseless, attributing the issue to systemic exclusion and urging immediate corrective measures.
Seeking data on backlog vacancies and the appointment of liaison officers to enforce reservation policies, Nayak had filed RTI requests with various departments. But central public information officers (CPIOs) gave him irrelevant recruitment statistics from earlier years and failed to address his specific queries, he said. "This is either a deliberate attempt to obscure politically sensitive data or evidence of a dysfunctional tracking system," Nayak said.
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