Telangana govt moves to implement 10% ST quota

Hyderabad : The Telangana government has issued roster points for the implementation of the revised 10% Scheduled Tribes (STs) reservation in the state. The general administration department (GAD) issued GO No. 130, amending the Telangana State and Subordinate Rules, 1996 (Amendment to rule 22) on Wednesday.

Though the government had issued a GO increasing the ST reservation from 6% to 10% a little over a month ago, on September 30, it had not finalised the roster points, which are mandatory for implementation of the amended ST reservation in recruitments and admissions.

The Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) and other departments were waiting for the roster points from the government to go ahead with the quota implementation. With this, at least 20,000 vacancies would be filled under the enhanced quota of 10% in various departments at various levels.

Sources in the government said chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao waited for the Centre’s response on the enhanced quota since it had exceeded the 50% cap of reservations and reached 54% with the latest increase.

Officials said since KCR was busy with the launch ofhis Bharat Rashtra Samithi and the Munugode election model code of conduct was in force, the roster points could not be issued.

The state government now sees no hurdle from the Centre on the new ST quota as the BJP government in Karnataka recently increased reservations for STs and SCs. A senior CMO official said they cannot question the Telangana government now. “The BJP government issued an ordinance a couple of weeks ago increasing the quotafor SCs from 15% to 17% and from 3% to 7% for STs, which takes the overall quota in Karnataka to 56%. This is 2% more than Telangana’s total quota,” he explained.