Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Thursday demanded that 80 per cent of the state’s jobs and seats in educational institutions be reserved for the residents of Bihar — as is prevalent in other states.
“Like other states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Kerala, which have a provision of reservation for their students, Bihar should also reserve 80 per cent for locals in jobs and admission in educational institutions under state government control,” Mr Prasad told reporters.
“I’ll take up the matter with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar,” added the RJD president, whose party runs the government in alliance with the Janata Dal United.
Mr Prasad said a shortage of higher education institutions in Bihar has forced its students to move to other states, where they have failed to find jobs due to the reservation system in place there.
But due to a lack of such provisions in Bihar, candidates from other states grabbed a majority of jobs in the state. Citing an example, he said in an ongoing examination conducted by the Bihar
Public Service Commission for Assistant Professor of English, 80 per cent candidates were from other states.
He further said that in states like Kerala and West Bengal, the marking pattern in school and college examinations were different from Bihar. As a result, their students score high marks. “In such a situation, they grab a major portion of employment, depriving students of Bihar,” he said.
A similar situation was prevalent in the recruitment of lecturers in other subjects like Science and Philosophy, where almost 80-90 per cent of successful candidates were outsiders, he added.
People from Bihar, especially migrant labourers, have been at the receiving end at states like Maharashtra, where they are accused to taking away employment from the residents of the state.