J&K govt. sends revised reservation quota proposal for L-G’s approval

A proposal to rationalise the current reservation quota, which squeezes the ‘Open Merit’ category to around 30%, has been sent to Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha for approval, J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said on Thursday (December 4, 2025). 

“The file was signed yesterday (Wednesday) and sent to the Lieutenant-Governor for vetting. We hope he will approve it and the order will be issued thereafter,” Mr. Abdullah said. However, Mr. Abdullah did not divulge the details of the proposal.

The Omar Abdullah government in 2024 had set up a three-member sub-committee to study the current reservation quota and suggest measures to increase the Open Merit category’s quota to 50%. 

In March 2024, the L-G had approved 10% reservation for newly included tribes, including Paharis, as Scheduled Tribes (ST), and added 15 new castes as Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The L-G’s move reduced the Open Merit quota to around 30%. It sparked a major street campaign from students and aspirants belonging to the Open Merit category.

The current policy has reservation of 20% for Scheduled Tribes (STs); 8% for Scheduled Castes (SC); 10% for Reserved Backward Areas (RBA); 8% for Other Backward Classes; 4% for Local Area Candidates/Integrated Borders; 10% for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS); and 10% for children of defence personnel, sports, persons with disabilities, etc. Earlier, J&K only had 10% reservation for STs.

Several J&K parties expressed fears that the Omar Abdullah government was reducing the RBA and EWS quotas to increase the Open Merit quota. The groups that fall under the RBA category have already opposed any move to cut their quota. 

“The share of RBA in the reservation policy was drastically reduced from 20% to 10% in 2020, even as the community constitutes approximately 25% of the total population. Any reduction system violates the principles of equity, fairness, and social justice,” aspirants of the RBA group said in a joint letter to the Chief Minister. 

The J&K Students Association (JKSA) had submitted a policy report to the CM’s Secretariat, advising “not to reduce EWS or RBA quotas”, a JKSA spokesperson said. “Instead, we recommended reforming and updating income, land and economic-progress criteria to make the reservation framework more fair, data-driven and equitable for all,” the JKSA said.

Imran Reza Ansari, general secretary of the J&K Peoples Conference, said the National Conference-led government’s changes to RBA and EWS reservation will be “a calculated assault on vulnerable Kashmiri-speaking communities masquerading as reform”.

“It will not be reform but linguistic gymnastics staging a heist. I call it ‘Rob Peter to pay Paul’, and then give Paul a podium to lecture Peter on equality while both get fleeced by this spineless and visionless government,” Mr. Ansari said.

The BJP has also warned against tinkering with the EWS and RBA quotas. “The National Conference has struck directly at the rights of the poorest sections of society — the EWS category of the economically weakest section and the RBA category of villages with no facilities, no schools, no roads, no basic infrastructure. These two classes have been targeted and reduced,” BJP spokesperson Altaf Thakur said.