after-bihar-and-andhra-it-is-now-telangana-s-turn-to-take-up-caste-census

After Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, it is now the turn of the Telangana government to take up caste census in the state to help in fine-tuning the welfare schemes.

 

During a review meeting at the Secretariat, the chief minister A Revanth Reddy directed the officials to conduct a caste census in the state. The exercise, he said, would help in ensuring accurate allocation of the benefits of welfare programmes besides aiding in designing welfare initiatives based on the population of diverse castes, especially those belonging to Backward Classes.

 

Conducting a caste census was one of the promises made by the Congress in the past. The minority declaration, passed by the Congress in November last year before the Telangana Assembly elections, promised to conduct a caste census within six months of the party coming to power.

 

At the national level, the party put forth a resolution pledging to conduct a caste census across the country and also promised to eliminate the 50 per cent reservation cap for Other Backward Castes (OBCs) through legislation.

 

Meanwhile, a caste survey is already in progress in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. The Jagan Mohan Reddy government is planning to complete the exercise by February 15, ahead of the upcoming elections to the state assembly and Lok Sabha in April-May.

 

The caste survey would capture details on socio-economic, educational, and employment aspects of all sections and categories of the people to support the state government in better policy formulation and implementation of the schemes, read the order. The enumerators would collect facial, iris and other details of the people for the e-KYC registration.

 

Those who favour a nationwide caste census argue that it would help the cause of social justice by fine-tuning the affirmative action programmes as per the level of backwardness of various communities. Given the harsh social realities, it would be prudent to have robust caste data as it will be useful to establish statistical justification for reservation. It is also a legal imperative because the courts want quantifiable data to support the existing levels of reservations, it is argued.

 

On the political front, the demand for a caste census is finding greater traction, with Congress making it one of the key campaign themes in the recent round of elections. The demand comes at a time when jobs and economic opportunities for the disadvantaged sections have been shrinking and the social disparities widening.