Mumbai: As Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange called off his 11th agitation on the issue of granting Kunbi (OBC) certificates to the community, official data shows there has already been a dramatic rise in the issuing of these certificates in the Marathwada region since the agitation began three years ago.
The number of Kunbi caste certificates issued to Marathas in the Marathwada region has soared from 652 to 3.1 lakh between Oct 2023 and Sept 7 this year, official data reveals. By contrast, the state had issued only 652 Kunbi certificates to Marathas in almost 40 years between 1986 and Oct 2023, when the Justice Shinde committee was formed to oversee the issue after Jarange’s protest. Marathwada is the epicentre of his agitation.
Across the state, the Shinde committee collated 58.7 lakh records of Marathas with Kunbi lineage since Oct 2023. On the basis of these, they applied for Kunbi caste certificates. The recovery of such records in Marathwada has been a challenge as it was once part of the Hyderabad state.
Also, historically, Vidarbha and North
Maharashtra benefited from Punjabrao Deshmukh’s agitation in the 1960s for the Maratha agrarian community in those regions to be registered as Kunbis (OBCs) in order to avail of quota benefits.
The govt has issued 14.4 lakh Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas across the state from Oct 2023 to Aug 31 this year. Of these, 3.1 lakh are in Marathwada, 3.3 lakh in Vidarbha, 1.1 lakh in the Konkan region, 2.1 lakh in Western Maharashtra, and 4.6 lakh in North Maharashtra.
The rejection rate of Maratha applicants for Kunbi certificates is extremely low. Of the 14.4 lakh applicants across the state during this period, only 6,214 were rejected (0.4%). In Marathwada, of the 3.1 lakh applicants, only 548 were rejected (0.17%).
However, one of Jarange’s key complaints has been about the district caste validity panels. Unless a caste certificate is scrutinized and validated by a govt committee, it cannot be used for jobs, education or to contest elections. Jarange alleged that the panels were deliberately rejecting Kunbi certificates for Marathas.
Data shows that only 21,051 applications have been submitted for the validation of Kunbi certificates issued to Marathas between Oct 2023 and Sept 7 this year. Of these, 16,110 had received validation (76.5%). Significantly, only 64 applications were rejected (0.3%).
Maratha activists said the bottlenecks in the caste validation process make it difficult for them to access the Kunbi (OBC) quota. “Since the agitation began three years ago, the number of Kunbi certificates issued to Marathas have undoubtedly gone up. But those in Marathwada face the challenge of accessing records of their family tree since this was not properly documented in the Hyderabad state. We need the caste validity committee to make discretionary decisions based on the village-level information of the family’s antecedents,” said Virendra Pawar from the Sakal Maratha Samaj.
The Shinde committee was formed to oversee the search for records of Kunbi antecedents and establish the criteria of issuing Kunbi (OBC) certificates to Marathas.
