Telangana Government Gears Up for Caste Census Bill in Budget Session

A day after Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy announced that the Congress government would undertake a caste census, the state government initiated steps to introduce the Caste Census Bill, in the upcoming Budget Session. 

Official sources in the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) stated that Revanth Reddy had directed BC welfare minister Ponnam Prabhakar to take steps to draft the Bill. Revanth Reddy instructed officials to undertake study tours to states that have conducted a caste census.

They were directed to adopt the best procedures in Telangana state after studying the methods in Bihar, Karnatakaand Andhra Pradesh. He said that caste census would help the government extend the benefits of welfare schemes and development



programmes to socialgroups more rationally. 

The Bihar government conducted a two-phase caste census survey four months ago and announced that, as per its findings, 63 per cent of the state’s population comprised Backward Classes (BCs).

Karnataka conducted a caste census in the name of Socio Economic and Education Survey last year, while the Andhra Pradesh government started the caste census process recently. 

The then British government had conducted a caste census as part of the population census in 1931 in India. Successive governments have been taking this as the parameter for extending reservations. There has never been a caste census in independent India.