After passing the Reservation Bill last month, the Telangana govt is considering ways of implementing the enhanced reservations for SCs and STs without getting the Centre’s consent as per a report by L Venkat Ram Reddy in Deccan Chronicle.
The hiked reservations apply in educaion and employment sectors.
On April 16, the Telangana Legislative Assembly had passed the 'Backward Class, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Reservation Bill, 2017', to hike reservation quota for backward Muslims and the Scheduled Tribes (ST) to 12% and 10% respectively.
Even as CM K Chandrasekhar Rao had announced that the reservation for Scheduled Castes would be increased, it remains at 15%.
Following the increase in reservations for Muslims and STs, the overall quota now stands at 62% and the government had sent the bill for Centre’s approval, as it has crossed the 50% cap set by the Supreme Court.
However, the Centre is yet to respond ever after a month.
Following in the footsteps of Tamil Nadu which had increased quotas for BCs, SCs and STs on its own, the Telangana government is now planning to do the same.
The state government though will have to wait for the Centre's nod to implement the hiked reservation for Muslims, which cannot be done on its own.
After a team of officials studied how Tamil Nadu was able to increase SC and ST quotas without the Centre’s approval, it found that it had done so by bringing out government orders.
The Telangana government is similarly trying to utilize constitutional provisions, which allows states to hike quotas for SCs and STs on their own, depending on the population of the communities.
“The GO copies were submitted to the state government. The TS government is seriously considering bringing similar GOs to increase reservations for SCs and STs as per their population,” a social welfare department official said.