No deadline for J&K quota review panel: Minister

SRINAGAR: J&K’s reservation policy is back on the boil with the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference (NC) government telling the assembly Saturday that it had not set a timeline for a ministerial review panel to submit its report.
“The cabinet sub-committee stands constituted to examine grievances regarding reservation rules. However, no specific timeline has been fixed for submitting the report,” social welfare minister

Sakeena Itoo

said in response to a question from opposition

People’s Conference MLA

Sajad Lone. Itoo heads the panel constituted after quota protests in Dec 2024 with cabinet colleagues Satish Sharma and Javed Rana as the other members.
Reservations in J&K are as high as 60%, making it a hot-button issue following the Centre’s decision to add more communities and expand quotas since the 2019 abrogation of special status under Article 370 and its conversion into a Union Territory. Many fear the quotas will be hiked to 70%.
Lone cited data and flagged stark regional disparities, alleging the quotas favoured Jammu areas and were “rigged” against Kashmir -- a Muslim-majority region.

Itoo said 5.39 lakh people -- 4.59 lakh in Jammu (85.3%) and 79,813 in Kashmir (14.7%) -- had been issued Scheduled Tribe (ST) certificates in the past two years. During the same period, 67,112 Scheduled Caste (SC) certificates had been issued in Jammu.
Lone seized on the numbers to highlight the disparity, calling the data a “shocker”. “Kashmir as a region is far behind. The net loss of quotas to Kashmiri-speaking population is of a much higher scale than we had thought,” the MLA argued.
According to Lone, Kashmiris, including Pandits are “victims” of the reservation policy. He cited data for other categories such as Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), Reserved Backward Areas, Actual Line of Control category to allege similar biases against Kashmir. “ST category showed Jammu issuing 4.59 lakh certificates (85.3%) while Kashmir only 79,813 (14.7%). Similar imbalances exist for EWS -- 92.3% in Jammu and 7.7% in Kashmir,” Lone said.
The Handwara MLA made it clear he was not against reservations but “murder of merit”, calling the current quotas a “post-dated cheque for disaster”. “There is a reservation of 60%. But within that reservation is a much bigger scam. Kashmiris not making it to KAS (Kashmir Administrative Service) or other exams is not because they are incompetent. It is the scourge of reservation that is killing their competence,” Lone said.
Slamming the Itoo-headed committee, he said it lacked a specific timeline for submitting its report despite previous indications of a six-month deadline. The committee was set up after NC’s Srinagar MP Aga Ruhullah Mehdi led protests by students outside CM Omar’s residence against the current reservation policy on Dec 23 last year.