As Maratha stir intensifies, Maha extends caste panel deadline by two months

Mumbai, Oct 28 (IANS) The Maharashtra government gave a two-month extension till December 24 to a committee entrusted with determining the methodology to issue ‘Kunbi’ caste certificates to the Marathas, even as the community intensified its pro-quotas stir, here on Saturday.

The government resolution was issued late on Friday and cited various reasons for the extension including translation of old documents, collecting comparative district-wise data of Kunbi and Maratha communities, among others.

The panel was formed on September 7 during the first phase of the agitation led by Maratha leader Manoj Jarange-Patil and it was given a month’s time to complete the work, but the committee has been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task.

Considering the complexity of the task in hand after touring nine districts, reviewing 1.50 crore entries, a series of nine meetings, and with much more needed to be done, the panel decided to ask the government for a two-month extension to complete the work.

The panel is scrutinising old records of the land, revenue, educational, birth-deaths, service records to the Nizam era before 1967, police and prisons, Waqf boards, some documents are in Urdu or Persian requiring translations, etc, leading to the deadline extension till December 24.

The state government is also in touch with the Telangana state on the issue of procuring Nizam-era documents, but the process there is ostensibly delayed owing to the assembly elections scheduled there on November 30, with the results expected on December 3.

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