ADILABAD: The Telangana BC Commission, led by its chairman G Niranjan, held the first of a series of public hearings in Adilabad on Monday to elicit the views of all stakeholders to prepare the ground for conduct of caste survey in the state.
The leaders from various communities belonging to four districts - Adilabad, Kumurambheem-Asifabad, Mancherial and Nirmal participated in the meeting and submitted their representations.
After collecting the opinions of all communities from across the state, the BC Commission will be making recommendations to the government on reservations to be allocated in the upcoming local body elections.
During Monday’s public hearing, the Commission received 63 representations from BC, SC and ST leaders of Adilabad, six from leaders of Asifabad, seven from leaders of Mancherial and 14 from Nirmal leaders.
Most of the leaders, including SC Mala Community district president K Ramesh, raised the issue of EWS quota, which provides 10 per cent reservations to “poorest of poor” among forward castes, and demanded that it be scrapped.
While minority leaders sought increased quota for their community in the BC category, tribal leaders wanted the Adilabad ZP seat reserved for STs.
The BC Commission will hold similar public hearings till November 13 covering all 33 districts in the state. The Commission will then submit all the details to the government, following which the socioeconomic, educational, employment, political and caste survey will be conducted.
Meanwhile, Commission chairman Niranjan said that the community leaders are demanding 42 per cent reservations in local body elections.
“After the enumeration, the reservations will be decided in proportion to population. It will be done scientifically so as to avoid issues. For example, Bihar conducted a caste-based survey for five months and spent around Rs 500 crore. But the Patna High Court issued stay on implementation of reservations. We want to ensure that we won’t encounter such problems,” he said.
District Collectors Rajarshi Shah of Adilabad, Abhilasha Abhinav of Nirmal and Kumar Deepak of Mancherial were present on the occasion.