Published Apr 20, 2026 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Apr 20, 2026 | 7:00 AM
Over 91 percent of urban households still marry within their caste.
Synopsis: The Telangana caste survey has found that cities have higher levels of caste inequality than rural areas, with Adivasi communities worse off after moving to urban areas. The data shows higher reported discrimination and a continued concentration of marginalised groups in low-paid work and poor housing.
The Indian city has carried a promise for decades: leave the village and its hierarchy for the metropolis. In its anonymity, in the heat of the modern economy, caste would dissolve. Merit would replace birth. The city would do what policy could not.
The Telangana Socio, Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste (SEEEPC) Survey 2024 tests that promise with data covering 3.55 crore people across 242 caste groups. It shows the promise does not hold. For the state’s most deprived communities, the city does not dissolve caste. It sharpens it.
The survey measured the Composite Backwardness Index (CBI), a score based on 42 parameters covering education, occupation, living conditions and land ownership, separately for rural and urban populations. The results dismantle the assumption of urban equality at its foundation.
Rural ST CBI score: 47. Urban ST CBI score: 57. Adivasi communities that migrate to Telangana’s cities become 10 points more backward, not less.
General Castes move in the opposite direction. Their rural CBI score is 17 and their urban score is 13. The city reduces their deprivation. For Scheduled Tribes, it compounds it.
The Independent Expert Working Group (IEWG), a nine-member panel set up by the Telangana government in March to analyse the survey data, states that there is no difference in caste-based backwardness between rural and urban areas. In rural or urban areas, caste still matters.
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In rural Telangana, the most backward group is 3.5 times more deprived than General Castes. In urban Telangana, that gap stretches to more than four times.
The survey calculates a rural–urban backwardness gap for each caste by measuring the difference between rural and urban CBI scores. A negative number means the urban population of that caste records more deprivation than its rural counterpart.
BC-B Kuruba Kuruma records minus 17. ST Lambadis record minus 16. BC-B Padmasali records minus 15. BC-D Mudiraj records minus 11. SC Madasi records minus 10.
For these communities, the city is not a pathway to progress. In villages, marginalised families often hold land, dry or fallow, which provides a subsistence buffer. In the city, that safety net disappears. It is replaced by rental housing in informal settlements and daily wage work without contracts.
The survey asked households whether family members faced discrimination when visiting places of worship. In rural Telangana, 3.8 percent reported such discrimination. In urban Telangana, that figure rises to 8.2 percent.
The IEWG attributes this partly to higher awareness of rights among urban Dalits and Adivasis who challenge traditional boundaries in metropolitan settings, leading to more frequent and visible instances of exclusion.
Inter-caste marriages occur at higher rates in cities at 8.7 percent against 3.3 percent in rural areas. Yet over 91 percent of urban households still marry within their caste.
Also Read: Telangana caste survey finds high rate of under-18 marriages of girls in OC Iyengars
In urban areas, 73 percent of Scheduled Caste households and 75.5 percent of Scheduled Tribe households live in dwellings with two or fewer rooms. Among General Caste households, that figure is 47.4 percent.
The urban labour market shows the same pattern. 30 percent of private sector professionals in Telangana belong to General Caste communities. Scheduled Tribes account for 5 percent, despite holding nearly identical population shares. 17.7 percent of the urban workforce works as daily wage labourers, a category where marginalised communities concentrate.
Among urban youth, 57 percent study in English. Among dominant OC communities, urban residency amplifies educational advantages already held. They access English-medium schools and professional networks that feed into the software sector, medicine and administrative services. SC and ST youth in the same city attend government schools at higher rates and enter daily wage labour markets at higher rates.
Sanitation access follows the same lines. Across the state, 32.5 percent of Scheduled Tribe households lack a toilet against 4.5 percent of General Caste households. In urban areas, the gap narrows but does not close. 95.11 percent of urban ST households have toilet access against 96.48 percent for General Caste households.
The survey identifies nearly 12 lakh people, 3.4 percent of the population, who identify as No Caste. 86 percent of them live in the Hyderabad extended city region covering GHMC, Rangareddy, Sangareddy and Medchal-Malkajgiri.
This group records a CBI score of 48, well below the state average of 81. They hold 22.9 percent of IAS and IPS posts despite forming 3.4 percent of the population. 43.3 percent still hold a caste certificate and 13.5 percent have previously accessed reservation benefits.
The IEWG notes that caste detachment typically occurs after individuals attain a degree of social and economic security. The city provides the conditions for that detachment. For the ST Lambadi family recorded at minus 16 on the rural–urban backwardness gap, those conditions do not exist.
The panel says the state needs to move from broad welfare categories to what it calls a social justice tap, using the survey’s granular CBI data to deliver targeted resources directly to the most deprived urban households.
