Amaravati, Nov 23: Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Tuesday adopted a resolution to urge the Government of India to conduct the caste wise census of the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes of citizens along with that of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Minorities while holding the General Census for 2021.
Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy stated that the enumeration of Backward Classes (BC) will help devise better policies for their welfare, education, employment, and for effective implementation to benefit BCs. He said that the last caste-based census in India was conducted in the year 1931 and even after 90 years, due to the lack of proper enumeration, there is no scientific data regarding the population of BCs to ascertain their social, educational, and economic backwardness, which has been posing a hurdle to meet the interests and aspirations of BCs.
The Chief Minister said that the government had made Backward Class as Backbone Class with its policies and programmes giving a lion’s share to them in economic, political and social spaces in a saturation mode. Unlike the previous TDP government that neglected the BCs, our government duly implemented every welfare scheme without any corruption, keeping eligibility as the only requirement. Besides welfare, BCs got a major share in posts, jobs, and schemes, as the State government enacted a law providing 50 percent reservations in all nominated posts and nominated works to all BC, SC, ST, and Minorities.
Briefly touching on the details, he said that the government had set up a permanent BC Commission and also sent two BC leaders to Rajya Sabha. He stated that 7 of the 13 Mayors, 6 of the 13 ZP Chairpersons, 76 of the 196 Market Committee Chairpersons, 201 of 484 nominated Directors, 53 of the 137 Corporation Chairpersons are BCs, besides establishing 56 BC Corporations. He assured to bring better initiatives and do more good for the BCs in the coming days.
Earlier, moving the resolution for caste-wise census of Backward Classes, Minister for Backward Classes, Chelluboina Srinivasa Venu Gopala Krishna said, the conduct of caste census will help the government evolve schemes for the social and economic uplift of BCs, as the previous census of BCs was conducted in 1931 before Independence. He said that the state government has been implementing various flagship programmes for the welfare of BCs to bring socio-economic development. He has explained in detail about the schemes which include Jagananna Amma Vodi, YSR Aasara Scheme, YSR Cheyutha Scheme, Jagananna Vasathi Deevena, Jagananna Vidya Deevena Scheme, YSR Pension Kanuka, Jagananna Saswatha Bhoo Hakku and others that are benefiting BC’s across the State.
MLAs Karanam Dharmasri, KV Usha Sricharan, K Venkata Nageswara Rao and Parthasaradhi hailed the Chief Minister for the State government’s welfare schemes and reiterated the need for bringing enumeration of BC’s.
