Welcoming the Centre’s decision to conduct a caste census, Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy urged the Centre to complete the census in a fixed timeframe and chalk out measures to prepare policies based on its outcomes (File photo)
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SIDDHANT THAKUR
Telangana, which has recently completed a comprehensive caste census, has asked the Centre to set up a Group of Ministers (GoM) and an experts’ panel to study experiments in different Sates and prepare modalities for the nationwide caste census.
Welcoming the Centre’s decision to conduct a caste census in the country, Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy offered to share the State’s experiences in this regard. He urged the Union Government to complete the census within a fixed timeframe and chalk out measures to prepare policies based on its outcomes. He further stated that the census can be completed in one year.
“We are ready to share our experience with the Union Government to make it a comprehensive one,” he said.
“The government should take measures to increase the cap on reservations beyond the 50-per cent limit. Besides increasing the limit, the government should ensure backward castes get 42 per cent of reservations,” he said.
“We have completed the process in 90 days by appointing over 95,000 enumerators and 10,000 supervisors. We have prepared a good policy to conduct such a census without any political interference,” the Chief Minister said.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, he said the Centre should hold extensive consultations with different States, civil society stakeholders and political parties.
“We prepared about 57 questions to collect socio-economic profiles of citizens. We have completed the process without any hiccups. We should also keep the data secure to ensure no breach of privacy,” he said.
He wanted the central government to depute officers to different States to understand the past experiences before finalising the modalities.
The Chief Minister also urged the Union Government to factor in variations in the status of different castes in different States.
Citing a few examples, he noted that the Boya community, which is considered as a tribal caste in Telangana, is OBC in Karnataka, and Lambadas, which are tribals in Telangana, are OBCs in Maharashtra.
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Published on May 1, 2025