It is now almost certain that the Union Government is going to drastically alter the rules on reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). This could render a large section of OBCs ineligible for applying under the quota for jobs in central government services and institutions under the control of the central government. The National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) is understood to have agreed to one of the key recommendations of the B.P. Sharma committee, appointed by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) of the central government. The committee has recommended that salary income be considered a part of the annual income for determining whether a candidate falls in the creamy layer and thus is ineligible for reservation. OBC MPs of the BJP are said to have protested this development. However, Thawar Chand Gehlot, union minister for social justice and empowerment, told FORWARD Press that salary was already being taken into account while computing the annual income of OBC families.