Caste survey report finalised, set for govt submission

Hyderabad: The Independent Expert Working Group (IEWG) has finalised its comprehensive report, following an in-depth analysis and interpretation of the Telangana State Government’s SEEEPC (Social, Education, Employment, Economic, Political, Caste) survey, commonly referred to as the Caste Survey, and is set to submit it within a week.

According to the IEWG, led by Retd Justice B Sudarshan Reddy, the nearly 300-page report presents a first-of-its-kind analytical model designed to measure socio-economic backwardness, assigning a Composite Backwardness Index (CBI) score and rank for each of the 242 castes identified in the survey.

The report is now undergoing final editorial touches and will be ready for handover shortly. The Group has already intimated Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka about the completion of their task and has sought a time to formally hand over the report. During a media briefing following its final meeting at the MCR HRD institute, Convenor Praveen Chakravarthy and Vice Chairman Kancha Ilaiah explained that the CBI assigns a backwardness score to each of the 242 caste groups listed in the Telangana SEEEPC survey.

They elaborated, “For the first time, we have developed an objective statistical method to calculate how backward each caste is relative to the other castes. It’s only relative to the other 242 castes. To put it in simple terms, it is a backwardness ranking of all the 242 castes. This is done using parameters from the caste census.” The IEWG, tasked with studying, verifying, analysing, and interpreting the SEEEPC Survey data conducted by the Telangana Government in November/December 2024, included members such as Prof Shantha Sinha, Dr Sukhadeo Thorat, Dr Himanshu, Nikhil Dey, Prof Bhangya Bhukya, Prof K Purushottam Reddy, Sandeep Kumar Sultania (Principal Secretary Planning and Finance), and Anudeep Durishetty (Secretary to the IEWG).