Andhra Assembly passes bill to grant 5 per cent reservation to Kapu community

Amravati: The Andhra Pradesh Assembly on Saturday unanimously passed the Kapu reservation bill to give 5 per cent reservation to the Kapu community in education institutions and government jobs.

The state cabinet had given a nod in this regard on Friday based on the report submitted by the Manjunath Commission.

The state cabinet has decided to include the Balija, Ontari and Telaga communities in the Backward Castes (BCs) and provide them 5 per cent reservation in education, employment and welfare schemes.

The state government will now send the bill to the Centre as the move to grant 5 per cent quota to Kapus exceeds the 50 per cent reservation limit mandated by the Supreme Court, said Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

The Bill will be first sent to the governor and then to the Union Home Ministry.

“As 5 per cent of reservation to Kapus makes total reservation exceed 50%, central govt nod is compulsory. We will send this bill to the centre. We ask them to include this reservation in schedule 9, so that it will become legitimate,” said Naidu.

Naidu told the Assembly that the Kapu community said it does not need political reservation. They just demanded quota in education and employment sectors.

Three of the four members BC commission headed by Justice KL Manjunatha gave their report to the chief minister on Friday.

While M Purnachandra Rao, S Satyanarayana and V Subrahmanyam gave their reports in favour of the Kapus, Manjunath did not give his report. They were said to be unanimously favoured giving 4-5 per cent reservation to the Kapus.

Andhra Pradesh has 29 per cent reservation for Backward Castes (BCs), 15 percent for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 6 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes (STs).