Poverty and Economic Justice — Amendments

Amendment	Year	Description	Impact
103rd Amendment	2019	The Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019 inserted Articles 15(6) and 16(6), enabling specified measures for economically weaker sections outside the classes covered by the existing backward-class reservation provisions. It enabled an additional reservation of up to ten per cent in the specified educational-admission and public-employment settings. Article 15(6) covers aided and unaided private educational institutions but excludes Article 30(1) minority institutions; its explanation refers to notified family-income and other indicators of economic disadvantage.	Economic disadvantage became an express basis for this particular route to educational and employment opportunity. The amendment is not a national poverty line, an MPI methodology or a universal income-support guarantee. EWS eligibility and the identification of everyone experiencing poverty answer different policy questions. A poverty-and-justice answer should therefore assess access through reservation alongside, rather than in place of, income security and essential services.