Increase SC reservation to 18% and implement SC sub-categorisation

The declaration promised two things: increasing Scheduled Caste reservation to 18 percent in proportion to SC population, and implementing sub-categorisation of SC reservations. The sub-categorisation component was delivered in substance: following the Supreme Court's 2024 judgment permitting states to sub-classify SCs, Telangana enacted the Telangana Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act, 2025 and notified its implementation on 14 April 2025, becoming the first state in India to operationalise SC sub-categorisation, dividing the SC communities into three groups based on a commission's empirical findings. The manifesto's A, B, C, D framing is credited as matching the delivered three-group categorisation in substance. However, the promised increase of SC reservation to 18 percent was not delivered: the sub-categorisation operates within the existing 15 percent SC quota, which was not raised to 18 percent. A major, verifiable delivery on categorisation combined with non-delivery on the quantum increase supports a partial verdict. Budget: not a direct expenditure commitment, so no allocation-versus-utilisation issue arises for the legislative measure itself.