The announcement comes weeks after the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led Cabinet, on 3 November, decided to take up a comprehensive caste-based census.
Published Nov 25, 2023 | 12:37 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 25, 2023 | 12:55 PM
Minister C Srinivasa Venugopala Krishna (left) with CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. (X)
Andhra Pradesh Information and Public Relations Minister C Srinivasa Venugopala Krishna has said that the government will begin a comprehensive caste census on 9 December to enumerate all castes.
The announcement comes weeks after the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led Cabinet, on 3 November, decided to take up a comprehensive caste-based census.
Noting that completing the caste census is a major goal of the YSRCP government, the minister said, “It is important to have a caste census to transform the living standards of people.”
Earlier, during the Cabinet meeting, the Chief Minister Jagan had said that he felt that it would be helpful for improving the living standards of the downtrodden sections of society.
Noting that there has been no caste census in India post-independence but only a population census, the minister said that the government is eliciting opinions from caste representatives across the state, an official press release said on Friday, 24 November.
Exuding confidence that the state would conduct the caste census in a fair and comprehensive manner, Krishna said that Andhra Pradesh’s enumeration exercise will emerge as a role model across the country.
He asserted that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is renowned for ensuring social justice and claimed that opposition parties are shivering at the mere mention of a caste census.
Though initially the caste census was announced to cover the 139 Backward Classes (BC) communities, now its scope includes all castes in Andhra Pradesh, the release said.
Following the release of the caste census data by the Bihar government on 2 October, Karnataka and Rajasthan governments have announced to conduct and release of the caste census data.
Karnataka undertook the census during Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s previous tenure, but the report was never made public.
According to the findings of the caste survey released by the Bihar government, the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) constitute a whopping 63 percent of the state’s total population.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to integrate the caste census with the upcoming national decadal census.
The Opposition INDIA bloc has also been pushing for a country-wide caste census. The Congress has been batting for a caste census in poll-bound Telangana as well.
During his Vijayabheri Yatra in Telangana, Rahul Gandhi said, “The census will let us know the socio-economic condition of Dalits, tribals, and OBCs. Once we know which caste has how much population, it becomes easy to determine for whom we have to budget how much money for a better and balanced improvement in their living conditions.”
The then-Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in 2015 commissioned the social-economic and educational survey, at an estimated cost of ₹170 crore in the state, the findings of which have not been made public yet.
The issue has come into focus once again now with Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, while aligning with the Congress’s endorsement of a caste census, has underscored the imperative for a scientific approach, acknowledging the clamour from diverse communities’ pontiffs, Cabinet ministers, and MLAs.
This, while Chief Minister Siddaramaiah unequivocally pledged acceptance of the report.
The focus of the debate is on the acceptance or rejection of the H Kanthraj Commission report following a survey conducted between 2015 and 2018 during the previous Congress government’s tenure.
While Siddaramaiah staunchly supports the acceptance of the report, Shivakumar aligns with pontiffs and leaders from the dominant Vokkaliga community in opposing it.
They are now calling for a resurvey, adding a layer of complexity to the government’s decision-making process.
(With PTI inputs)
