Jammu received nearly ten times more EWS certificates than Kashmir in two years, though Kashmir has more below poverty line (BPL) population. In the just concluded assembly session, while lawmakers sought one definition of poor, the government cited central rules, reports Maleeha Sofi
Kashmir is being crowded out of government service, lawmakers told the Assembly in the just concluded autumn session. Almost half of the opportunities in professional admissions, jobs and even promotions are reserved. One category shows how the system works. It is the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota.
Kashmir has more poor people who depend on government rations than Jammu. Yet the EWS test uses a different yardstick. The result is a lopsided spread of certificates. This critically impacts Kashmir in jobs and entry to professional courses.
On the last day of the session, Handwara MLA Sajad Lone raised the issue through a Call Attention notice. PDP MLA Waheed Para had earlier moved an adjournment motion. Replies tabled by the Revenue and Social Welfare departments now put hard numbers on the record. The government has not moved on the central demand.
Lopsided Numbers
The Revenue Department gave the House the count. In the last two years, Jammu division issued 24,058 EWS certificates. Of the total 26544 certificates issued, Kashmir division issued 2,486. That makes Jammu’s share about 91 per cent.
The district figures are stark. Rajouri issued 12 EWS certificates. Poonch issued three. In Kashmir, Kulgam led with 618, followed by Anantnag with 583 and Baramulla with 315. Srinagar issued 174 and Ganderbal 70. The department did not explain the gap.
This is the trend that this particular certificate has retained from the very start. Jammu and Kashmir has issued a total of 89494 EWS certificates since 2018. Of them, 79567 have been issued in Jammu region’s 10 districts, and 9927 (11.09%) have been issued in Kashmir region’s 10 districts. In the district ranking, Kathua tops the chart with 20479 certificates, followed by Jammu with 13728.
Now set that against poverty data. Lone cited the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department. It records over 37 lakh AAY and BPL priority household ration cards in Kashmir. Jammu has about 29 lakh. Para quoted free ration beneficiaries at 37,64,605 in Kashmir and 29,76,027 in Jammu.
Lone asked how the government could admit that 37 lakh poor live in Kashmir and 29 lakh in Jammu, yet see Jammu collect nearly ten times the certificates. Per capita income is the same in both regions, he said. Social conditions are the same too. “There is no rocket science in this,” he said. He challenged any economist or statistician to explain it.
Asset Test
Lone located the problem in the asset criteria. Under the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Rules, read with SRO 518 of 2019, an EWS family must sit outside the SC, ST and backward class schemes. Its gross annual income must be below Rs 8 lakh. It must not hold assets specified in the rules.
The central DoPT standard, which the Minister says Jammu and Kashmir has adopted, excludes families with a flat of 1,000 square feet or more. It also excludes those with a residential plot of 100 square yards in notified municipalities, or 200 square yards elsewhere. Five acres of farmland is another bar.
Lone put the effect plainly. A person earning under Rs 8 lakh a year may count as poor. Yet a house on three and a half marlas can make that person rich. Someone poor enough for a ration card, he said, turns rich the moment he applies for a job. He called it a double standard.
Housing patterns sharpen the friction. Jammu lies in the plains and has more flat systems. Kashmiri families more often live in houses of their own, not in squeezed flats. A test built on property therefore falls differently on the two regions.
Social Welfare Minister Sakina Itoo offered a similar observation but drew a different conclusion. In Kashmir, she said, almost every person owns a roof over their head. In Jammu, many are homeless or live on the streets. More people there qualify and apply. She said this has been so since 2019.
Lone rejected that reading. Two regions with identical income and social indicators, he said, cannot produce a 92 to 8 split by chance.
The written reply is blunt. The government says no proposal is under consideration to relax the EWS criteria or drop the asset conditions. It adds that a Priority Household ration card does not by itself replace the income and asset tests.
Jobs Impact
The certificates matter because jobs follow them. Lone cited replies he received in the Assembly. About 7,500 recruitments have been made since the government took office, two years ago. Roughly 750 fell under EWS. Of these, 690 went to Jammu and only 60 to Kashmir.
Under a ration card criterion, he said, the split would be 412 for Kashmir and 337 for Jammu.
The pipeline magnifies the effect. About 40,000 recruitments are pending, he said, and around 4,000 would fall under EWS. On current asset criteria, about 320 of those posts would go to Kashmir and 3,680 to Jammu. On an AAY and BPL test, about 2,200 would go to Kashmir and 1,800 to Jammu.
Existing reservations already crowd Kashmiri youth out of the job market, Lone argued. The EWS imbalance compounds it. SC, ST, Pahari and other reserved candidates also compete in the Open Merit category. This reduces the Open Merit category more.
The wider certificate data points the same way. Between 2018 and 2026, the government issued 17,62,474 reservation category certificates. Jammu division accounted for 14,17,028 of them, or 80.4 per cent. Kashmir division accounted for 3,45,446.
An Assembly reply of September 22, carries a warning. The figures are cumulative. They do not show who actually availed reservation in jobs or admissions. That, however, is a different story.
For ST II certificates issued to Pahari groups, the total is 5,73,667. Jammu division has 5,04,007 and Kashmir division 69,660. Rajouri alone accounts for 3,01,091.
Kerala Model
Lone pointed to Kerala. He said the state treats an AAY or Priority Household ration card as its EWS yardstick. He offered to hand the Kerala form to the Speaker and the Minister.
His proposal is simple. J&K should have one definition of poor across employment and food supplies. “You cannot have two definitions,” he said. In his view, anyone holding a Priority Household or AAY card should qualify.
Other states have not all taken the same path. The 103rd Constitutional Amendment of 2019 inserted Articles 15(6) and 16(6). They allow a state to provide up to 10 per cent reservation for EWS. State public employment is a state subject. States therefore decide whether and how to implement it. The Union said as much in Parliament.
In August 2021, the Centre listed 12 states and Union Territories with a 10 per cent quota. Jammu and Kashmir was among them. Since then, more states have followed, including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab.
Some states have changed the test while keeping the quota. Andhra Pradesh dropped a split that had reserved five per cent for Kapus. Kerala carries its own exclusions in income calculations. Others have held back. Tamil Nadu said it would not implement the quota in state jobs after the Supreme Court upheld the amendment in November 2022. Chhattisgarh had not implemented it by August 2026, the Union told the Lok Sabha, because its bill remains unapproved.
Legal Question
Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather framed the core point. Lone was not opposing the 10 per cent quota. His issue was the definition clause. Could it be changed?
Itoo said it could not be changed locally. EWS, she said, stems from Union and court directions. Had Jammu and Kashmir framed its own rules, the Assembly could amend them. This is a Parliamentary law and a central standard, she added.
Lone disagreed. Article 16 empowers states and Union Territories to define EWS by family income and economic indicators, he said. The 2019 DoPT guidelines suit central jobs. For state jobs, there is no legal binding to use them. Jammu and Kashmir could keep the central definition for central posts and adopt its own for UT posts.
He recalled that an earlier Assembly passed an EWS bill while he was a minister. The Governor returned it, saying it was outside constitutional jurisdiction.
Itoo had said Lone was Social Welfare Minister when the rules came in during 2019. Lone corrected her. He was not a minister then, he said. He was in jail.
Reservation Report
Itoo described the Cabinet subcommittee. In December 2024, the Chief Minister formed it with three senior ministers. Over six months, she said, it consulted students and communities and examined every aspect, including EWS.
The Cabinet approved the report and sent it to the competent authority. Observations came back. The subcommittee answered them. The Cabinet approved again and sent it once more. She has sent several reminders, she said.
She asked Lone and senior member MY Tarigami to use their good offices in Delhi. She added that under UT rules, Cabinet decisions cannot be made public until the Lieutenant Governor approves them.
Open Merit
The wider structure is under strain. On paper, the rules amended through SO 176 of 2024 keep 50 per cent for Open Merit. Scheduled Castes get 8 per cent. Scheduled Tribes get 20, including 10 for the added Pahari and related groups. Other Backward Classes get 8 and Residents of Backward Areas 10. Areas adjoining the Line of Actual Control or International Border get 4. EWS gets 10.
The government says there is no single Open Merit figure. It varies between recruitment, undergraduate courses and postgraduate courses.
Para told the House the cumulative effect cuts Open Merit below 40 per cent. He sought a review of EWS eligibility on income, property and assets. He also asked for a study of the impact on unreserved youth, particularly the Kashmiri-speaking population, with periodic review.
Open Questions
The Speaker said the government would look into Lone’s suggestion. No date has been set for a decision. Three questions remain open. Can the definition be changed locally? When will the reservation report be decided? And why does Kashmir, with more ration card holders, receive so few certificates?
