Ministry
Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the Government of India's nodal ministry for the welfare and empowerment of Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, denotified and nomadic communities, senior citizens, transgender persons, sanitation workers, victims of substance abuse, and persons with disabilities. It is the institutional home of India's "social justice" policy domain, the arm of the state that administers the backward-classes apparatus around which the reservation and caste-census debate turns.
Updated
- Headquarters
- Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi
- Budget (2025-26)
- About Rs 13,611 crore allocated
- Structure
- Two departments: Social Justice & Empowerment; Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities
- Central reservation shares
- OBC 27%, SC 15%, ST 7.5%, EWS 10%
Role
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the Government of India’s principal instrument for affirmative-action welfare. Through its Department of Social Justice and Empowerment it administers scholarships, concessional finance, skilling and protective programmes for Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, denotified and nomadic communities, senior citizens, transgender persons, sanitation workers and people recovering from substance abuse; through its Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities it runs policy and schemes for Divyangjan. It is the nodal ministry behind the backward-classes machinery of the state, including the National Commission for Backward Classes and the finance and development corporations that lend to marginalised communities. It does not itself conduct the census or maintain job-reservation rosters, but it owns the social-justice policy domain in which those instruments operate.
Its power is definitional rather than coercive. The Ministry and the commissions it anchors shape who counts as “backward”, which communities are listed, and how welfare and reservation benefits are targeted. That places it at the centre of the reservation and caste-census argument: any move to measure caste more precisely, or to revisit the 50% reservation ceiling, flows through the categories and welfare architecture this Ministry maintains, even though the census enumeration itself is run by the Registrar General under the Ministry of Home Affairs and job-reservation rosters sit with the Department of Personnel and Training.
Desk maintained by IndiaStand editorial cycles. Officeholders are transient; this dossier tracks the institution.
Timeline since 1947
- reference
Constitution provides the reservation framework
Articles 15(4), 16(4) and 46 enable special provisions; Articles 341 and 342 define Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
- reference
Second Backward Classes (Mandal) Commission constituted
Its 1980 report recommended 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes in central services.
- reference
Indra Sawhney judgment fixes the 50% ceiling
The Supreme Court upheld 27% OBC reservation, introduced the creamy-layer exclusion, and capped total reservation at 50% save extraordinary circumstances.
- reference
Ministry of Welfare renamed
The former Ministry of Welfare was reconstituted as the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
- reference
103rd Amendment adds a 10% EWS quota
A new economically-weaker-sections reservation was created for citizens outside SC, ST and OBC categories.
- reference
Supreme Court upholds the EWS quota
In Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India a five-judge bench upheld the 103rd Amendment by a 3:2 majority.
- reference
Union Cabinet Committee decides to enumerate caste in the census
The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs decided to collect caste data for all groups in the forthcoming census, the first such enumeration since 1931.
- official
Highest-ever departmental expenditure recorded
The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment reported spending about Rs 11,810 crore in FY 2025-26, its highest on record and up nearly 14% on FY 2024-25.
Frequently asked
- What is Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment?
- The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the Government of India's nodal ministry for the welfare and empowerment of Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, denotified and nomadic communities, senior citizens, transgender persons, sanitation workers, victims of substance abuse, and persons with disabilities. It is the institutional home of India's "social justice" policy domain, the arm of the state that administers the backward-classes apparatus around which the reservation and caste-census debate turns.
- When was Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment established?
- Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment was established 1998-05.
- What does Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment do?
- Its remit covers Welfare and empowerment of Scheduled Castes, Welfare of Other Backward Classes and denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic communities, Empowerment of persons with disabilities (Divyangjan), Welfare of senior citizens, transgender persons and persons engaged in begging, Drug demand reduction and rehabilitation, Welfare of sanitation workers (Safai Karamcharis) and their liberation from manual scavenging, Educational and economic empowerment schemes (scholarships, skilling, concessional finance).
- What is the latest on Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment?
- As of 2026-07-06: Highest-ever departmental expenditure recorded. The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment reported spending about Rs 11,810 crore in FY 2025-26, its highest on record and up nearly 14% on FY 2024-25.