india

Updated: Aug 12, 2019 08:36 IST

Chhattisgarh’s chief minister Bhupesh Baghel announced on Sunday that his government will provide reservation benefits to the schedule caste (SC) community in proportion with their population in the state.

The schedule caste community comprise roughly about 12.8 per cent of the state’s population while the existing reservation provided to them is 12 per cent.

The present government has blamed the previous CM Raman Singh from BJP-led government and said that “they reduced the reservation from 14 to 12% and the community was constantly demanding restoration of the old percentage.”

According to an official from CM’s secretariat, it cannot be assured if the move will help the SC community. “It is not clear whether the SCs will benefit if the reservation will be decided on the basis of population as the BJP has been constantly claiming that the reservation percentage was reduced as per the population,” the official from Chief Minister’s secretariat said.

On January 18 in 2012, the then BJP government had issued an order related to the reservation in government jobs and educational institutes. The same order reduced the reservation of SC community to 12 per cent from 16 per cent and that for Scheduled Tribes was increased to 32 per cent. The quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) was maintained at 14 per cent.