No deadline for J&Okay quota evaluation panel: Minister | India Information – The Instances of India

SRINAGAR: J&Okay’s reservation coverage is again on the boil with the Omar Abdullah-led Nationwide Convention (NC) authorities telling the meeting Saturday that it had not set a timeline for a ministerial evaluation panel to submit its report.
“The cupboard sub-committee stands constituted to look at grievances concerning reservation guidelines. Nevertheless, no particular timeline has been mounted for submitting the report,” social welfare minister Sakeena Itoo stated in response to a query from opposition Folks’s Convention MLA Sajad Lone. Itoo heads the panel constituted after quota protests in Dec 2024 with cupboard colleagues Satish Sharma and Javed Rana as the opposite members.
Reservations in J&Okay are as excessive as 60%, making it a hot-button situation following the Centre’s determination so as to add extra communities and increase quotas because the 2019 abrogation of particular standing beneath Article 370 and its conversion right into a Union Territory. Many concern the quotas might be hiked to 70%.
Lone cited knowledge and flagged stark regional disparities, alleging the quotas favoured Jammu areas and had been “rigged” in opposition to Kashmir — a Muslim-majority area.
Itoo stated 5.39 lakh individuals — 4.59 lakh in Jammu (85.3%) and 79,813 in Kashmir (14.7%) — had been issued Scheduled Tribe (ST) certificates previously two years. Throughout the identical interval, 67,112 Scheduled Caste (SC) certificates had been issued in Jammu.
Lone seized on the numbers to focus on the disparity, calling the info a “shocker”. “Kashmir as a area is way behind. The web lack of quotas to Kashmiri-speaking inhabitants is of a a lot greater scale than we had thought,” the MLA argued.
Based on Lone, Kashmiris, together with Pandits are “victims” of the reservation coverage. He cited knowledge for different classes equivalent to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), Reserved Backward Areas, Precise Line of Management class to allege comparable biases in opposition to Kashmir. “ST class confirmed Jammu issuing 4.59 lakh certificates (85.3%) whereas Kashmir solely 79,813 (14.7%). Related imbalances exist for EWS — 92.3% in Jammu and seven.7% in Kashmir,” Lone stated.
The Handwara MLA made it clear he was not in opposition to reservations however “homicide of benefit”, calling the present quotas a “post-dated cheque for catastrophe”. “There’s a reservation of 60%. However inside that reservation is a a lot greater rip-off. Kashmiris not making it to KAS (Kashmir Administrative Service) or different exams just isn’t as a result of they’re incompetent. It’s the scourge of reservation that’s killing their competence,” Lone stated.
Slamming the Itoo-headed committee, he stated it lacked a selected timeline for submitting its report regardless of earlier indications of a six-month deadline. The committee was arrange after NC’s Srinagar MP Aga Ruhullah Mehdi led protests by college students outdoors CM Omar’s residence in opposition to the present reservation coverage on Dec 23 final 12 months.