Telangana becomes first State to enforce SC categorisation to help marginalised groups

Hyderabad: The Telangana State government has announced the implementation of the Telangana Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act 2025.

The Cabinet sub-committee headed by Irrigation minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy and co-chaired by Health minister C Damodar Rajanarsimha handed over the first copy of the gazette notification—with April 14 as the appointed day for the categorisation of Scheduled Castes (SC) into three groups—to chief minister A Revanth Reddy on Monday.

First State to operationalise the classification of SCs

The issuance of GO coincides with the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar, architect of the Indian Constitution. Following the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on August 1, 2024, which upheld the constitutionality of sub-classifying the SCs and Scheduled Tribes (STs) to provide distinct quotas for the most marginalised groups within these communities, Telangana became the first State in the nation to operationalise the classification of the Scheduled Castes.

Reservation benefits distributed among three groups

In classifying the SCs into three groups for implementing the rule of reservation, the government referred to the findings in the apex court’s ruling, empirical data and the social, economic, educational, employment and political standing of the SC community.

As a result, 15 sub-castes considered to be the most backward were assigned to Group-I with 1 per cent reservation. Though these groups formed 0.5 per cent of the population, the government chose to grant them 1 per cent reservation to provide educational and employment chances to the most backward SCs.

Overall, 18 of the 59 sub-castes that obtained marginal benefits were assigned to Group II with a 9 per cent quota, while 26 sub-castes that were comparably better off in terms of opportunities were assigned to Group III with a 5 per cent reservation.

Addressing a press conference, minister Uttam Kumar Reddy, who headed a sub-committee on SC categorisation, said, “From today, SC categorisation will be implemented in Telangana in employment and education. We have issued a GO to that extent and gave the first copy to the CM,” he told reporters.

Reservation quota will go with an increase in population

“Telangana is the first State to implement the SC categorisation after the Supreme Court’s verdict,” Reddy said. The minister alleged that earlier governments in Telangana confined themselves to passing resolutions for the categorisation and never took it forward.

He further said all job vacancies in the State government now will be filled according to the sub-categorisation for SCs. The Irrigation minister further said the Cabinet sub-committee did an extensive exercise in collecting the opinion of all the stakeholders.

He also said if the SC population goes up in the 2026 census, the reservations for it would go up accordingly. The Telangana Legislature in February accepted the recommendations of Justice Akther on SC categorisation, rejecting advice that the creamy layer should be exempted from reservations.

The Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservation) Bill, 2025, was passed last month. The Supreme Court gave a verdict last year in favour of categorisation.