Hyderabad:
Telangana government on Monday issued an order on the implementation of Scheduled Castes (SC) categorisation, making it the first state in the country to do so, Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy said.
Telangana government had earlier appointed a commission headed by retired High Court judge Justice Shameem Akther on SC categorisation, which made recommendations that the 59 Scheduled Caste (SC) communities be divided into three groups viz I, II, and III for the total reservations of 15 per cent in government jobs and education.
“The following Act of the Telangana Legislature received the assent of the Governor on 8 April 2025, and the said assent is hereby first published in the Telangana Gazette for general information on 14th April 2025,” the GO said.
The issuance of GO coincides with the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar, architect of the Indian Constitution.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy in a post on ‘X’ said the State government paid the best tributes by bringing into force a great “Act of Social Justice” addressing a long overdue demand for classification of SC sub-castes.
“Telangana is the first state in India to implement the revolutionary decision of #SCSubCategorisation. We are all proud to have made history,” he said in the post.
Revanth Reddy further said empowering and ensuring opportunities for all sections of Dalits, the state government issued a gazette notification, whose first copy was handed over to him by the committee that undertook the “historic work”.
According to the commission report, group-I comprising 15 socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged SC communities, is given one per cent reservation.
Group-II, including 18 moderately benefited SC communities, is provided with a nine per cent quota while Group III comprising 26 significantly benefited SC communities, are given a five per cent reservation.
Addressing a press conference, Minister Uttam Reddy, who headed a sub-committee on SC Categorisation, said the first copy of the GO was given to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy this morning.
“From today, from this moment, SC categorisation will be implemented in Telangana in employment and education. We have issued a GO to this effect,” he told reporters.
“Telangana is the first state to implement the SC categorisation after the Supreme Court’s verdicts,” Reddy said.
The minister alleged that earlier governments in Telangana confined themselves to passing resolutions for the categorisation and never took forward.
He further said all job vacancies in the state government now will be filled according to the sub-categorisation for SCs.
The Irrigation Minister further said the cabinet sub-committee did an extensive exercise in collecting the opinion of all the stakeholders.
He also said if the SC population goes up in the 2026 census, the reservations for it would go up accordingly.
The Telangana Legislature in February accepted the recommendations of Justice Akther on SC categorisation, rejecting an advice that creamy layer should be exempted from reservations.
The Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservation) Bill, 2025 was passed last month. The Supreme Court gave a verdict last year in favour of categorisation.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
