Advisory to States/Union Territories on issue of Residence/Caste/Tribe Certificate to students in School

DOPT Advisory on Issue of Residence/Caste/Tribe Certificate to students in School

Annexure : DOPT Advisory

Advisory to States/Union Territories on issue of Residence/Caste/Tribe Certificate to students in School

The Government is committed to ensuring citizen centric governance through citizen friendly initiative. A number of representations have been received by this department regarding difficulties faced by Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates and other than SC/ST students, in obtaining caste/tribe/residence certificates, while applying for admission, posts and services under the Central Government.

Issue of residence/caste/tribe certificate is under the domain of the State/UT administration. The Residence /Caste/Tribe Certificate is issued by the concerned authority of the State Government/Union Territory to prove that the person bearing the Certificate is a resident of the State/Union Territory by which the certificate is being issued.

This issue has been deliberated at various fora. The Department of School Education & literacy, Ministry of Human Resources Development has supported the initiative to prepare and distribute caste certificate to the students when they are in Class V.

This issue has also been discussed with the Principal Secretaries of various State Governments in a meeting chaired by the Minister of State for Personnel (Public Grievances & Pensions) on 22.04.2016. During this meeting, a few States have informed that they are already issuing such certificates.

Caste/Tribe/Residence Certificate to SC/ST students

• With a view to ease the difficulties faced by the SC/ST students, it is proposed that ” Caste or Tribe Certificate” and also the ” Residence” certificate may be issued to SC/ST students, all over the country, while studying in Class V/Class VIII, as an annual exercise.

• The concerned State/Union Territory may decide the possibility of issuing such a certificate either in class V or Class VIII.

• Once the grade of class in which the certificate will be issued is decided, it should be issued to all students in the same grade throughout the State and the same should be continued as an annual exercise.
Residence certificate

• For students of other than SC/ST communities, it is proposed that Residence (Domicile Certificate) be issued to them while studying in Class V or VIII, as the case may be.

Proposed Procedure

• The Head Master of the School in which the student is studying would get the necessary documents/papers filled up from the students studying in Class VNIII as an annual exercise for issue of Residence and also Caste/Tribe Certificate.

• A window of two months in September/October or any other time frame decided by the concerned State Government/Union Territory may be allocated/ decided for completing this exercise.

• The School Head/Principal will get the documents collected from all the SC and ST students and also other than SC/ST students and arrange to submit them to the relevant State Government authority/revenue authorities for making the requisite certificates.

• The concerned revenue/State Government authorities may scrutinise those documents and may issue the relevant certificates within a period of 30-60 days.

• If the certificate of any student is rejected for issue of the relevant certificate, reasons will be provided and provision for one time appeal may be allowed by the State authorities.

• Once the certificate is made, it may be given to the students in cellophane cover, as far as practicable, through the School authorities and would be kept with them for safe custody for availing the benefits/concessions and facilities available to the concerned category of students.

• The possibility may also be explored to indicate the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe status in the Birth certificate.

• In States where acceptance for SC/ST/Domicile certificate is mandatorily done only through Citizen Service Centres, it will be responsibility of the Headmaster of the school for collection of the documents and ensuring that the application is digitally sent to the concerned authorities from the nearest Citizen Service Centres. If there is already a time limit prescribed by the State authorities through executive order or regulation for issuing such certificates, then such time frame may be adhered to.

Authority : Persmin.nic.in