Whole reservation concept rigged against Kashmiri speaking population: Sajad Lone

Srinagar President of Peoples Conference and legislator Sajad Lone on Saturday said the whole reservation concept is rigged against the Kashmiri speaking population and against Scheduled Tribe (ST) or Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), living in Kashmir.
In a post on X, Lone said that he had posed some questions pertaining to reservations in Assembly which were mostly focused on regional disparities across all categories.
While summarizing the government data, Lone said from March 2023, the government issued 67,112 Scheduled Caste (SC) certificates in Jammu, while none was issued in Kashmir during this period.
Similarly, in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category, Jammu accounted for 85.3% (4,59,493 certificates), whereas Kashmir lagged far behind at just 14.7% (79,813).
In the EWS, while Jammu secured 92.3% of the certificates (27,420), while Kashmir received only 7.7% (2,273).
Other reserved categories, including ALC (Area Along the Line of Control) and IB (International Border), show near-total dominance by Jammu, with Kashmir receiving just a fraction of the benefits. Even in the Reserved Backward Area (RBA) category, where the distribution appears somewhat balanced (52.8% Jammu vs. 48.2% Kashmir).
“Kashmir as region is far far behind. The net loss of quotas to Kashmiri speaking population is of a much higher scale than we had thought. The whole reservation concept is rigged against the Kashmiri speaking population and against ST or EWS living in Kashmir,” MLA Lone said on X.
“Even the ST population living in Kashmir is a net loser. They make up a meagre 15% of the total applicants from the ST pool. RBA is almost same but when you adjust for population, against it is less. Kashmir population is approximately 7% more. And areas under RBA are almost same proportionately. Yet in number terms they are behind Jammu,” he added.
Lone said the Committee set up by the government on December 10, 2024 to examine grievances on reservations has no specific timeline for submitting report.
“We were told it is 6 months timeline,” he said.
UNI