Telangana: Telangana BC panel lays groundwork for caste survey
HYDERABAD. Hyderabad: As a first step towards conducting caste census in the state, the BC Commission held discussions with various stakeholders on Monday.
A delegation of Jan Samiti on Caste Census met BC Commission chairman Dr. Vakulabharanam Krishna Mohan Rao, member-secretary B Bala Maya Devi and members CH Upendra, Shubhpradh Patel Nooli and K Kishore Goud at the panel’s office in Khairatabad.
The delegation, comprising Justice Chandra Kumar, Professor Murali Manohar, Professor PL Visweswara Rao, retired IAS officer Akunuri Murali, Professor I Thirumali, Professor Simhadri, Professor Padmaja Shaw, Professor Narendra Babu, Dr. S Prithviraj, Devalla Sammaiah and Satish Kote, submitted a representation along with relevant documents and research papers.
Government issues order
It may be recalled that the State BC Commission had invited opinions on caste survey, questionnaire, modalities and methodology from subject experts for conducting socio-economic caste survey in the state. The government issued G.O. MS No. 26 on caste survey and also issued a memorandum to the BC Commission, asking it to prepare a detailed action plan, following which the panel began deliberations with subject experts, sociologists, caste leaders, public associations and NGOs. The team of experts shared its experiences in detail and suggested that the survey cover all vertical and horizontal – socioeconomic, educational, employment, political and scientific angles. The team discussed caste surveys conducted recently in states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Karnataka. In these states, when the survey was being conducted, there were certain legal and technical hurdles, the team said, and discussed ways to overcome these hurdles. The beginning of the session was preceded by a substantive discussion by the BC Commission chairman, who shared various techniques, tools, methods, software, processes, procedures, case studies and operations with the team and also explained about SECC-2011 (Socio Economic Caste Census- 2011). Vakulabharanam also referred to the reports of the Ambashankar, Sattenathan, Justice Janardhanam of Tamil Nadu and H Kantha Raja Commission of Karnataka.
The methodology was explained in detail and a roadmap was also prepared for the Telangana caste survey. These things were earlier discussed with reputed institutions like ASCI, CESS, CGG, CSD, Department of Economics and Statistics and will be discussed once again. The commission plans to invite representatives of all caste associations, community leaders, NGOs, social scientists, anthropologists, language experts and take their suggestions in both oral and written formats.
