Srinagar, October 28, 2025 : PDP MLA Waheed Para on Tuesday raised serious concerns in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly over what he termed a “sharp regional divide” in the issuance of social category certificates between the Jammu division and the Kashmir Valley, citing data shared by the Revenue Department.
According to official figures, 69,704 Scheduled Caste (SC) certificates were issued in Jammu, compared to just 474 in Kashmir, reflecting 99.2% in Jammu and 0.67% in Kashmir. Similarly, for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category, 5,25,778 (87.2%) certificates were issued in Jammu against 76,656 (12.7%) in Kashmir.
For the OBC category, Jammu received 43,438 (56.6%) certificates while 33,226 (43.4%) were issued in Kashmir. Under the EWS category, 18,945 (88.5%) certificates went to Jammu and only 2,441 (11.4%) to Kashmir.
However, under the Resident of Backward Areas (RBA) category, the trend reversed — 31,804 (67.1%) certificates were issued in Kashmir versus 15,595 (32.9%) in Jammu. For the Actual Line of Control (ALC) category, Jammu again dominated with 2,796 (85.2%) certificates compared to 484 (14.7%) in Kashmir.
Para said these figures reveal a “grave breach of fairness, equality, and administrative impartiality”, urging that the reservation policy be rationalized in proportion to the population.
“These statistics expose deep-rooted structural imbalance that demands urgent administrative introspection,” Para said.
