Hyderabad, July 4
The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh will soon issue a fresh ordinance to provide four per cent reservation for socially and economically backward Muslims in jobs and educational institutions.

The modified ordinance will not only scale down the quota to 4 per cent, as against 5 per cent planned earlier, but also classify Muslims into various groups based on their social backwardness for the purpose of providing reservations.

While reduction in quota will ensure that total reservations in the state will not exceed 50 per cent, a ceiling prescribed by the Supreme Court, the categorisation of the community on the basis of socio-economic status will help stave off criticism over religion-based reservations.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy here today.

The cabinet approved the report of AP Backward Classes Commission which recommended four per cent quota for 15 groups among Muslims identified as socially, economically and educationally backward.

The commission, headed by D. Subrahmanyam, conducted a detailed survey on the social status of Muslims, identified 15 specific classes as backward and recommended their inclusion among Backward Classes.

The move is seen as an attempt by the government to wriggle out of a legal quagmire that its quota policy has slipped into.

The High Court had, in November 2005, quashed an earlier ordinance, terming it as "unconstitutional and arbitrary”. The Supreme Court had refused to grant stay on High Court order in January last year.

"Instead of making it a religion-based quota policy, we have decided to provide reservations for Muslims based on their social and economic backwardness," information minister A. Ramanarayana Reddy told a press conference.

The concept of creamy layer will be applied as per the government guidelines. The quota policy will be implemented from the current academic year, the minister said.

The new ordinance is also likely to face rough weather as several Muslim organisations have already opposed “caste-based” reservation system on the ground that Islam does not permit division of people on the basis of caste.