K'taka govt contract row: Reservation based only on backwardness, observes Jairam Ramesh presenting historical data

Jairam Ramesh

With the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) engaged in intense war of words over Karnataka government's decision to amend the KTPP Act to provide a four per cent reservation for Muslims in government contracts, Congress's chief whip in the Rajya Sabha, Jairam Ramesh, in a tweet presented a chronology of legislations since 2015 to encounter BJP's claim of the grand old party pandering to appeasement politics and added that the current legislation has to be seen as continuation to an ongoing effort by the state governments to extend reservation to deal with extreme levels of 'backwardness' among certain communities.

The senior Congress leader opined that the Karnataka Legislative Assembly's  passage of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Amendment Bill to grant a four percent reservation to Muslims in public contracts should not be seen in isolation, but contextualized in view  of legislations from 2015-- whereby a 24 per cent reservations for SC/STs in civil work contract was proposed with the limit of Rs 50 lakh. The bill was passed in 2017, tweeted the Congress leader.

The amendment reserves four per cent of civil works contracts up to two crore rupees and goods and services contracts worth up to one crore rupees for the contractors of other backward classes from Muslim communities.

In 2024, Ramesh  observed that the reservation in civil works was extended to-- OBC contractors belonging to Category - 1 (Most Backward 4 per cent), Category IIA (Relatively Most Backward 15 per cent, including Buddhists). Additionally in March 2025, the cap for reservation in civil works contracts was raised across the board to Rs 2 crore applicable as follows:

- 24 per cent for SC/STS
- 4 per cent for OBC contractors belonging to Category I
- 15 per cent for OBC Contractors belonging to Category IIA- 4 per cent for OBC Contractors belonging to IIB

The categorization of Backward classes in Karnataka was done in September 1994, under which Muslim communities have been listed under category IIB after carrying out educational and socio-economic backwardness survey. Ramesh reiterated that was not on the basis of religion but solely based on backwardness. This trend has continued under different governments in the state, emphasised the Congress communication in-charge.