BANGALORE: After allocating funds in proportion to their population, the state government is now considering increasing reservation for the SC and ST communities on the same lines.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced this at the Valmiki Jayanti celebrations organised by the Social Welfare Department here on Wednesday.
Currently, the community gets an 18 per cent reservation— 15 per cent for SCs and three per cent for STs. The OBC category gets a reservation of 25 per cent, while Lingayats and Vokkaligas get 7 per cent.
The remaining 50 per cent is for the General category.
From this fiscal, the government will be allocating development funds according to the population per community.
SCs and STs make up around 24 per cent of the total population and the government is considering increasing the reservation by 7 percentage points to 25.
However, the proposed increase will mean that the reservation quota will breach the 50 per cent mark stipulated by the Supreme Court. Tamil Nadu has a reservation quota of 60 per cent, he said. “Inclusive growth cannot be achieved sans equitable distribution of the state’s resources,” Siddaramaiah said, asking officials to lay out an acceptable revision after the caste census.
He also said Congress is the only party in the country with a strong commitment to ensuring social justice.
He said the only way to eradicate the caste system is to empower caste groups through constitutional guarantees.
Paying rich tribute to Maharshi Valmiki, Siddaramaiah said even Mahatma Gandhi was inspired by him to develop the country on the “Rama Rajya model”.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also conferred the Valmiki award on educationist D Borappa.
Social Welfare Minister H Anjaneya, Congress MLC V S Ugrappa, and writers Siddalingaiah and S V Siddaramaiah were present on the occasion.