DAVANGERE: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday claimed that his government’s upcoming socio-educational and caste survey is different from the Union Government’s caste enumeration.
Addressing the media in Davanagere, the CM said that he has no objection to the Centre carrying out a caste census.
Siddaramaiah said that his government’s caste census is driven by the imperative of social justice and will help in creating an equal society. He added that the Centre has not clarified whether its census is a social, economic, and educational survey similar to the Karnataka caste census. “The Centre is only doing a caste census. We are conducting a comprehensive socio-educational and caste survey,” he reiterated.
The CM’s remark comes following a gazette notification stating that the national caste census would begin on March 1, 2027, while in certain regions like the Union Territory of Ladakh, snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, it would begin on October 1, 2026.
To provide social justice, a social, economic and educational survey should be conducted, the CM said. “The situation of people should be known to formulate welfare schemes. We are conducting a social, economic and educational survey in order to provide social justice,” the CM added.
“The powerful have opposed it. There is no such thing as the powerful and the weak. It has already been 10 years since the H Kantharaj-led Karnataka State Permanent Backward Classes Commission conducted a caste survey.
Therefore, according to Section 11 of the Karnataka State Backward Classes Act, if a report is a decade old, a new report must be prepared. Hence, we are conducting a fresh survey,” Siddaramaiah added.