Saturday, December 06, 2025 | 12:58 AM ISTहिंदी में पढें
Business Standard
Notification Icon
userprofile IconSearch

How the Centre plans to use tax data to settle social justice issues

The govt committee on EWS might have set the template for future; EWS limits and income tax exemption limits are now twinned, if the Supreme Court accepts the panel's report

Poor, ration, food, PDS, senior citizens, old age, DBT, direct benefit transfer, cash
premium

Representative image

Subhomoy Bhattacharjee New Delhi
It is rarely that an income tax record is used to settle a social justice question in India. But that has happened in the report of the three-member committee formed by the Centre to revisit the definition “economically weaker section” (EWS) for reservation in education and jobs. It could also settle for the future, the penchant among departments to use surveys to figure out how welfare schemes work and instead using self-correcting feedback loops. 

But for the finance ministry, a new challenge has emerged. EWS limits and income tax exemption limits are now twinned, if the Supreme Court accepts the