Revanth says proud to have made history
Hyderabad: As a tribute to Dr B.R. Ambedkar on his birth anniversary, the state government on Monday issued a gazette notification to implement the Telangana Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act, 2025, to sub-categorise SCs into three groups and released guidelines for implementing reservations in education and employment.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and ministers celebrated the occasion at the Secretariat by distributing sweets as Telangana became the first state in the country to introduce the SC sub-categorisation.
“Telangana is the first state in India to implement the revolutionary decision of SC sub-categorisation. We are all proud to have made history. On the highly auspicious day of the birth anniversary of Bharat Ratna Babasaheb Dr B R Ambedkar, the Telangana state government paid the best tribute by bringing into force a great act of social justice, addressing a long overdue demand for classification of SC sub-castes,” Revanth Reddy wrote on X.
According to the new law, if eligible candidates for reserved seats in educational institutions or jobs are unavailable, they will be filled by candidates from the next SC group. If reserved posts or seats remain unfilled even afterwards, they will not be filled by candidates from other castes but will be carried forward.
The gazette notification, which implemented the Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservation) Act, 2025, shows that Group-I will get one per cent reservation within the 15 per cent quota for SCs; Group-II will get 9 per cent reservation; and Group-III will get 5 per cent reservation. The Group-I consists of 15 socio-economically backward castes, Group-II has 18 and Group-III has 26 such castes.
The SC sub-categorisation law was enacted in Telangana after a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court allowed such categorisation among SCs and STs to ensure that more backward castes among these groups avail the benefit of reservation.
Later, addressing a press conference in the Secretariat, minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, who headed the Cabinet sub-committee on SC sub-categorisation, said Telangana had created history by becoming the first state in the country to legally implement the SC sub-categorisation after the Supreme Court’s verdict on August 1, 2024.
Cabinet sub-committee members Damodar Rajanarsimha and Ponnam Prabhakar, and MP Balram Naik, said that the Congress government had transformed a long-pending demand into law through a transparent and legally sound process.
“No government had the courage or commitment to act on it. It was only after our government came to power that the process was set in motion," Uttam Kumar Reddy said.
He said the government had issued three government orders (GO) to operationalise the SC categorisation: GO Ms. No. 9 and GO Ms. No. 10 of the Scheduled Castes Development department, and GO Ms. No. 99 of the general administration department, all dated April 14, 2025. While GO No. 9 notified the SC (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act, 2025, GO No. 10 contained the detailed implementation rules, and GO No. 99 issued instructions for applying these reservations in government services.
“The Congress government has done what no other party could. All parties extended verbal support for SC categorisation, but none took it to implementation. We have done it legally, inclusively, and with full preparedness,” Uttam Kumar Reddy said.
The minister clarified that the categorisation would not apply to recruitment notifications issued before August 1, 2024, the date of the Supreme Court’s ruling. “We did not issue any new job notification after that date so we could legally implement categorisation. Now that the framework is in place, the Chief Secretary and all departments have been instructed to issue fresh notifications from Tuesday,” he stated.
Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the rules, notified in G.O.Ms. No. 10, provided a detailed and enforceable framework for the implementation of SC categorisation in public employment, education, and welfare schemes. From now on, all government job and admission notifications must mention the group-wise allocation of SC reservation.
“A key feature of the rules is the carry-forward mechanism: if a post reserved for a particular SC sub-group remained unfilled due to non-availability of eligible candidates, the post could not be transferred to another group. It would be carried forward to the next recruitment cycle under the same category,” he said. Departments were required to take all steps to fill such vacancies, including extending deadlines and reaching out to eligible candidates within that group.
He said the government would constitute a state-level monitoring committee to supervise the implementation. “All departments must maintain group-wise records of selections and admissions and submit quarterly reports to the Chief Secretary. The rules also specified that non-compliance may attract disciplinary action.”
He said the Congress government has also rejected the proposal to introduce a creamy layer, ensuring that no SC group would be excluded based on income or occupation. “We are here to ensure justice, not exclusion,” said Uttam Kumar Reddy.
