Telangana government hikes quota for STs to 10% with late night order

HYDERABAD: The State government late on Friday issued a GO increasing reservations to Scheduled Tribes (STs) in education and employment from the present 6 per cent to 10 per cent. With this, the total reservations in Telangana will go up to 54 per cent. The increased quota will come into force with immediate effect.

Almost five-and-a-half years after the State Legislative Assembly adopted a Bill urging the Centre to increase the ST and Muslim (BC-E category) reservations, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had on September 17 announced that the State government would increase the ST reservations from 6 per cent to 10 per cent. Accordingly, the GO was issued past midnight.

In April 2017, a special session of the Assembly passed a Bill proposing 10 per cent reservations for SCs and 12 per cent reservations for Muslims and sent it for assent of the President, as the State government proposed to take the total reservations in Telangana to 62 per cent from the 50 per cent. However, the Centre did not approve reservations for Muslims.

While passing the Bill, the State government had recalled that the total reservations in Tamil Nadu were 69 per cent and decided to implead in a case pending in Supreme Court challenging the TN reservations.

Incidentally, the Opposition parties and the tribal activists have been demanding for the last six years that the State government increase the ST reservations by issuing an executive order and there was no need to refer the ST reservation issue to the Centre. Thus, the government decided to increase the reservations of STs to 10 per cent keeping aside the Muslim reservations.