Telangana CM meets PM, seeks Centre's nod for quota bill

Delhi/Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought the Centre's nod for a legislation passed by the state legislature for enhancing reservations in the state.

Rao briefed Modi on the social composition of the newly-created state and made a strong a case for including the legislation in Schedule IX of the Constitution to give it immunity from 50 percent overall upper limit on reservations.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, urged the PM to treat Telangana at par with states like Tamil Nadu, which is implementing 69 percent reservations.

During the meeting which lasted for one hour and 20 minutes, the Chief Minister discussed various state-related issues.

KCR told Modi that the majority of Telangana's population constitutes Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward classes and minorities.

He also urged the PM to leave it to the states to fix the quantum of reservations for admissions into educational institutions which come under their purview and in appointments in their respective governments.

Telangana legislature on April 16 passed a legislation, hiking the reservations for backward Muslims from 4 percent to 12 percent and for the Scheduled Tribes from 6 percent to 10 percent. With this, the overall quota for all groups in the state has gone up to 62 percent.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief urged the PM to accept the long-pending demand for categorisation of the Scheduled Castes for reservations and present a bill in the Parliament.

He sought exemption from income tax for the income earned through agriculture related activities and various vocations as was done in the case of farmers. He said the move will benefit several backward castes depending on vocations like sheep rearing, fishing, weaving and hair cutting.

KCR requested the PM to ensure that there is no negative impact of GST on state's revenues.

He also sought steps to increase the seats of Telangana Legislative Assembly as per Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, speeding up bifurcation of the high court, release of Rs 1,400 crore towards Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) Fund and declaring Kaleswaram irrigation project as a national project.