Hyderabad: BC welfare minister Ponnam Prabhakar on Sunday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take necessary steps to ensure a scientific and transparent enumeration of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) in the Census-2027.In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, Ponnam Prabhakar made several suggestions regarding the enumeration of OBC and SEBC communities. He said reliable information on the actual population and socio-economic conditions of backward classes was essential for the effective implementation of policies relating to reservations, education, employment, welfare and equitable representation.The minister urged the Centre to create a clearly defined separate OBC and SEBC category in the Census questionnaire, similar to the separate categories provided for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.He suggested that a clear mechanism should be established in advance to identify and officially classify OBC and SEBC communities, rather than relying solely on the caste name provided by an individual and undertaking classification at a later stage.The minister referred to the difficulties encountered during the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), when caste names were recorded through an open-ended system.He said differences in spelling, local names, synonyms, sub-castes and pronunciation resulted in multiple variations of caste names being recorded. He urged the Centre to adopt a standardised system in the 2027 Census to prevent the recurrence of such problems.The minister suggested that the centre consider the experience of Telangana’s Socio-Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste (SEEPC) survey conducted during 2024-25.
