The stage is ready for the Revanth Reddy-led Congress authorities in Telangana to undertake a caste survey throughout the state, which was a significant promise of the Congress in its manifesto for the November 2023 Meeting elections.
This has come almost a decade after the earlier Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) authorities carried out the Samagra Kutumba Survey or Built-in Family Survey within the state.
Over 80,000 enumerators and 10,000 supervisors can be concerned within the Congress authorities’s caste survey train throughout the size and breadth of the state.
The implementation of the survey, formally known as the Socio, Financial, Instructional, Employment, Political and Caste Survey, has been a high precedence for the Reddy authorities, which took cost in December final 12 months and adopted a decision on this regard within the Meeting in February.
A authorities order (GO) was issued on October 10, which designated the Planning Division because the nodal company of the survey and directed it to finish the train inside 60 days.
The Telangana authorities claims the survey will kind the idea of its plans to implement varied socio-economic, instructional, political and employment alternatives for the amelioration of backward lessons (BCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and different weaker sections within the state.
The Reddy authorities has additionally tasked the Telangana BC Fee to determine the share of reservations for the OBCs in native our bodies. Reddy had stated that the native physique polls can be held solely after reservation is granted based mostly upon the findings of the caste survey.
In accordance with the federal government’s directives, the BC Fee has determined to tour the state from October 24 and maintain public hearings within the 10 headquarters of the erstwhile districts, giving rise to apprehensions that it might delay the findings of the caste survey.
Congress chief and Telangana BC Fee chairperson G Niranjan, chatting with The Indian Categorical, nonetheless brushed apart such considerations. “The caste survey and public hearings are two completely different workout routines. The survey shall be held throughout the state to enumerate particulars of individuals from all castes whereas public hearings shall be held to gather details about the BC communities,” he stated.
Niranjan stated every enumerator will go to 10-15 households a day and the method would take round 15 days after which the data shall be collated. “Based mostly on the data, the Fee will come to a scientific conclusion in regards to the inhabitants of every caste and this can assist us suggest reservation for BCs,” he stated.
About the potential for breaching the 50% restrict set by the Supreme Court docket for reservations, Niranjan stated the federal government will urge the Centre to reinforce the reservation cap. “It may be carried out solely by means of a laws in Parliament. We’re doing our job and retaining every thing prepared,” the state BC Fee chairperson stated.
BRS chief Dasoju Sravan, who had moved the Telangana Excessive Court docket demanding a caste survey, welcomed the Reddy authorities’s transfer, however known as it “reactive”. He stated it was a “nice alternative” for the BCs to get justice. “However except you examine the backwardness or forwardness of all communities, how can we arrive on the relative backwardness of the BC, SC, ST communities?” he requested.
Flagging the sub-categorisation demand raised by sections of the BC communities, the BRS chief stated, “True social justice shall be served solely when the relative backwardness throughout the BCs in addition to your complete inhabitants is ascertained.”
The BCs, which make up round 54% of Telangana’s inhabitants, have been pushing for the caste survey. Following the Supreme Court docket’s August 1 determination to permit sub-categorisation of SCs and STs and Reddy’s subsequent announcement that Telangana would be the first state to implement it, the BC communities have demanded the identical to make sure greater quotas in authorities jobs and training.
The president of the Nationwide BC Welfare Affiliation and former Rajya Sabha member, R Krishnaiah, hailed the federal government’s “reliable and environment friendly” method. “In contrast to the family survey of the BRS, which was legally questionable, the caste survey is scientifically sound and follows authorized procedures. The BRS’ survey was not introduced within the Meeting nor a statutory physique was fashioned to supervise it,” he stated.
The findings of the BRS-commissioned survey had been by no means made public however reportedly used to implement varied community-specific welfare schemes and number of beneficiaries.
Krishnaiah additionally believes that the survey would assist decide the suitable proportion of reservations in native our bodies and can assist in correct allocation of funds for growth programmes. “Our organisation will intensify its wrestle if the federal government fails to extend reservations for BCs in native our bodies after the survey is performed,” he stated.
One of the vocal supporters of the caste survey, Chief of the Opposition within the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had advocated it within the run-up to the Telangana Meeting polls and was the primary to congratulate Reddy in September after the CM introduced that his authorities would go forward with it. “Caste census is step one to justice! As a result of with out realizing the social and financial well being of any society, it’s unattainable to make correct plans for it. And caste census is the one manner to make sure equitable participation of each part of the society within the prosperity of the nation,” Gandhi had then stated.
