Telangana first state to implement Scheduled Caste categorisation, issues orders

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.

Hyderabad: Telangana has become the first state in the country to implement the contentious SC sub-categorisation, with a Government Order issued on Monday coinciding with Dr BR Ambedkar's birth anniversary. A cabinet sub-committee headed by Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy presented the copy of GO No. 9 to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.

Last month, the state legislature passed the Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservation) Bill, 2025, which received Governor Jishnu Dev Verma's assent on April 8. The official gazette publication followed on April 14. In addition to GO No. 9 implementing the categorisation, GO No. 10 establishing the rules, GO No. 29 determining roster point allocations were issued on Monday.

Speaking to reporters, Uttam Kumar Reddy announced that SC categorisation takes immediate effect.

“We have officially released the Government Order today and handed over the first copy to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy. The categorisation of SCs has been a matter of long-standing discussion in the Assembly across all parties, but no government had the courage or commitment to act on it. It was only after our government came to power that the process was set in motion,” he said.

He clarified that the new categorisation would not apply to recruitment notifications issued before August 1, 2024, the date of the Supreme Court’s ruling. “We did not issue any new job notification after that date so we could legally implement categorisation. Now, that the framework is in place, the Chief Secretary and all departments have been instructed to issue fresh notifications from Tuesday onwards,” he stated.

He said that while previous governments had "limited the issue to Assembly discussions", the Congress government has now translated it into action. The minister highlighted that they acted decisively within two hours of the Supreme Court's verdict, having previously halted job notifications until the categorisation was implemented.

The Cabinet Sub-Committee will meet on Tuesday to decide on filling job vacancies, with the new categorisation applying to all upcoming jobs. He confirmed that the reservations follow the Shameem Akthar Commission's recommendations and noted that Telangana has pioneered implementation following the Supreme Court verdict.

“A key feature of the rules is the carry-forward mechanism that if a post reserved for a particular SC sub-group remained unfilled due to non-availability of eligible candidates, the post could not be transferred to another group. It would be carried forward to the next recruitment cycle under the same category,” he said. However, departments were required to take all necessary steps to fill such vacancies, including extending deadlines and reaching out to eligible candidates within that group.

The government would constitute a state-level monitoring committee to supervise the implementation. All departments must maintain group-wise records of selections and admissions and submit quarterly reports to the Chief Secretary. The rules also specified that non-compliance may attract disciplinary action.

Notably, the Congress government rejected the proposal to introduce a creamy layer, ensuring that no SC group would be excluded based on income or occupation.

The categorisation was based on the detailed report of the Justice Shamim Akhtar Commission, which was appointed in October 2024. The commission received over 8,600 representations and analysed indicators like population, literacy, higher education, employment, financial aid, and political participation across 59 SC sub-castes. Its findings formed the basis for the three-group classification.

Uttam Kumar Reddy also pointed out that while the 15 per cent SC quota was based on the 2011 census, the SC population in Telangana was now estimated to be around 17.5 per cent. He said the Congress government would consider enhancing the reservation percentage after the 2026 census, once updated population data becomes available.

The government had appointed a commission headed by retired high court judge Justice Shameem Akthar to study SC categorisation. The commission recommended dividing the 59 Scheduled Caste communities into three groups within the existing 15 per cent reservation framework. According to the commission report, group-I comprising 15 socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged SC communities, are given one per cent reservation. Group-II, including 18 moderately benefited SC communities, are provided a nine per cent quota, while the Group-III comprising 26 significantly benefited SC communities, are given five per cent reservation.