National Conference raises concern over ‘distorted reservation policy’ in J&K

Farooq Abdullah said complaints from deserving students who are not getting admission in professional colleges are increasing. File | Photo credit: IMRAN NISSAR

Leaders of the ruling National Conference (NC), including party president Farooq Abdullah and J&K Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather, have expressed concern over the current reservation policy, introduced during the Union Territory (UT) central government, which favors up to 70% reservation category candidates.

“General category candidates, if we keep more and more reservations, will be pushed to Scheduled Caste status like in 1947. Open merit is facing injustice. Efforts need to be made to address this injustice. Current quota policy is taking jobs at the cost of merit,” said Dr. Abdullah in a speech in Srinagar on Sunday.

Dr. Abdullah said complaints from meritorious students who are unable to get admission in professional colleges are increasing. “The complaint of Open Merit aspirants is that most of the medical, engineering seats etc. were allotted to people with 45% marks and not those with 80% and above,” he added.

J&K Assembly Speaker Mr Rather also expressed concern over the “regional imbalance in issuance of Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) certificates”. “This is a serious issue. No section of society should be subjected to injustice. I have directed the government to look into this,” Mr Rather said.

Meanwhile, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmaker Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra said there was a worrying trend to “exclude the Kashmiri-speaking population from the governance system”.

“No one is against reservation for those living in disadvantaged localities or economically weaker sections, but it should not be at the expense of merit and the Kashmiri speaking population. Reservation should be proportionate to the population. If the general category is 70%, it should get its due,” Mr. Parra said.

The opposition leader said Kashmiri youth, who had suffered greatly in the past few decades, were being subjected to a harsh new policy of police verification and “denied the right to work”.

“Many aspirants are those facing charges and many are those who qualify but are denied the right to join because their relatives were separatists,” Mr Parra said.

Distribution of EWS certificates

He added that the distribution of EWS certificates between Kashmir and Jammu divisions is skewed, “which is another discrimination”.

The J&K government recently told the assembly that 2,486 EWS certificates have been issued in Kashmir division as against 24,058 in Jammu division in the last two years.

Meanwhile, a Jammu-based body, the Joint Action Committee for Reserved Categories, on Monday said it will launch protests across the UT if the reservation policy is not fully implemented as per UGC norms.

“There are misleading statements about reservation policy. Who included categories like EWS, Resident of Backward Area (RBA) etc. above 50% weak reservation?” asked the head of the committee.

According to the Lt. Govt., reservation quotas have been increased by giving 10% special quota to Paharis and increasing the OBC quota from 5% to 8%. Before the surge in reservations, J&K had 8% reservation for Scheduled Castes, 10% for Scheduled Tribes, 4% for OBCs, 4% for LoC/International Border, 10% for Backward Area (RBA) and 10% for EWS.

Published – 5 Oct 2026 23:35 IST