Hyderabad:

Telangana will become the second Congress-ruled state after Karnataka to undertake a caste census – an exercise that will continue from November 6 to 30. Chief Minister Revanth Reddy also ordered the constitution of a Backward Castes Commission following the orders of the High Court, which wanted the new commission to guarantee them a quota in local body elections.

On November 5, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi will be in Telangana to attend a program on caste census. Mr. Gandhi is expected to meet associations, student organizations and intellectuals to take a position on the subject.

The previous backward caste panel was based on a 1993 law and had the sole mandate of collecting data on education and employment quotas. This time, the census will collect the socio-economic profile of all castes, sources said.

Sources said 48,000 teachers will be deployed for the survey, for which primary schools will work only half a day this month.

They will go from house to house and conduct a survey to collect data. This will encompass social, educational, employment, economic and political data. Government staff will put stickers on the doors. There will be 85,000 investigators and observers.

Caste census was one of the major election promises made by the Congress.

At the time, Mr. Reddy, who was leading the Congress campaign, had said in an open letter that only a caste census would ensure justice for the backward classes.