Take two families in Telangana earning under ₹1 lakh a year — one Scheduled Caste, one General Caste. Same poverty line. On the state’s new backwardness index, the SC family scores three times worse.
That’s not rhetoric. It’s data from the most granular caste survey any Indian state has produced. Released April 16, Telangana’s SEEEPC Survey covered 3.55 crore individuals across 242 castes — 97% of the state. Backward Classes make up 56.33% of the population. SCs account for 17.4%, STs for 10.4%. General Castes, the group holding a disproportionate share of jobs, land, and government posts — just 11.9%.
Those percentages are the headline. What the survey measured beneath them is the story.
The Gap That Income Can’t Close
A Composite Backwardness Index scored each of the 242 castes on 42 parameters — education, employment, land, income, gender, social discrimination, access to finance. SCs and STs scored three times worse than General Castes. BCs, 2.7 times.
The employment data hits hardest. Half of all SC workers are daily wage labourers — versus roughly one in ten General Caste workers. Only 5% of SCs hold private sector jobs. General Castes hold 30%. That 12% of the population controls 30% of professional private-sector positions.
And the welfare system meant to close this gap? Thirty percent of state spending flows to groups already better off than the state average. Agriculture subsidies like Rythu Bharosa benefit land-owning families — not the daily wagers who need them most.
Telangana didn’t just count castes. It turned inequality into a blueprint — and the rest of India is next.
Why Every State Should Be Watching
India hasn’t enumerated castes since 1931. That changes this month — the national census with caste enumeration begins April 2026. Telangana’s 42-parameter methodology is now the benchmark.
The timing is explosive. With five states head to polls this month, every party will have to reckon with what this data means for their own voter base. Parliament is set to take up the delimitation Bill and the women’s reservation Bill. Both depend on demographic data that, until now, didn’t exist at this resolution. Bihar’s own caste survey reshaped its politics last year. Telangana’s data is sharper — 42 parameters versus Bihar’s 18. Telangana is already considering 42% reservation for BCs.
Those two families earning under ₹1 lakh? Telangana just proved their poverty was never the same. In a few months, every state in India will have to answer the same question about its own.