The B.P. Mandal commission was set up to study the reasons of backwardness of the socially and economically backward classes.
The Mandal Commission or Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission (SEBC) was set up in India on 1 January 1979 by the government of the Janata Party under Prime Minister Morarji Desai with a mandate to "identify the socially or educationally backward classes".
It was led by B.P. Mandal, in order to consider the problem of reservations for individuals to remedy caste discrimination, Mandal and Indian parliamentarians used eleven social, economic and educational metrics to assess backwardness.
In 1980, on the basis of its reasoning that OBCs ('Other Backward Classes') defined on the basis of caste, economic and social indicators accounted for 52% of India's population, the Commission's report recommended that reservations be given to members of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) for 27% of jobs in central government and public sector enterprises, making the total number of reservations available to members of Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
A provisional stay order was subsequently issued by the Supreme Court but enforced by the central government in 1992 for employment in public sector undertakings in the central government.