BC panel to wrap up its exhaustive work very soon

Vijayawada: BC Commission chairman Justice K L Manjunath said on Monday the Commission would conduct the 13th and last public hearing meeting in East Godavari in March and later would submit a report to the State government on the public hearing conducted by the commission and feedback it received from the BCs in the State. He said that the commission noticed that there is need to increase the reservation quota for Backward Classes

Actually, the BC commission headed by justice K L Manjunath conducted a public hearing at Siddhartha Auditorium on Monday amidst tight security. Representatives of all major BC castes associations attended the public hearing and explained the socio and economic conditions of their castes and submitted their representations. Dozens of barricades were erected and a large posse of police personnel were drafted to prevent any untoward incident. Traffic restrictions were also imposed since morning in view of the public hearing.

Justice Manjunath speaking on the occasion said the BC commission was formed in January 2016 and since then it conducted public hearing in 12 districts of Andhra Pradesh and the last hearing would be conducted in East Godavari next month and later would submit the report to the State government.

Justice Manjunath said so far the BC commission received 61 representations from the people for inclusion in the list in to Backward Classes and 31 representations for the group change in the list of BC castes.

He said except Kamma castes, all OC castes have submitted representations for the inclusion into BC category. BC Commission members Acharya Venkateswara Subramanyam, Mallela Poornachandra Rao, S Satyanarayana along with officials were present.

Justice Manjunath said most of the representations were related to change the castes from other groups to Group A and said that the government would take the details of the smart pulse survey for categorisation of BCs.