The Socio-Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste Survey (SEEEPC) conducted by the Telangana government last year noted the prevalence of small and fragmented land holdings, with 80% of households falling into the category of small holdings owning less than five acres.
The SEEEPC survey, which was completed in January 2025, was kept in the public domain on Wednesday night, after state Backward Classes Welfare Minister Poonam Prabhakar, along with Chief Secretary K Ramakrishna Rao, released it to the media.
“The survey, which included nearly 35.5 million individuals across 242 castes, was the first comprehensive door-to-door caste survey of its kind in independent India,” Prabhakar said.
The survey was analyzed by an Independent Expert Working Group (IEWG), led by jstice B Sudershan Reddy and convened by economist Praveen Chakravarty and the report was submitted to the government in July 2025. It was also released into the public domain at the same time.
The 178-page expert committee report revealed that Scheduled Castes (SCs) have the highest proportion of small landowning households at 90.5%, followed by Backward Classes (BCs) at 85%, indicating that most households in these groups depend on marginal plots of land that are often less productive and economically unsustainable.
In contrast, other castes recorded a lower share of smallholdings at 69.1%, indicating relatively greater ownership of medium and large plots of land. This structural advantage translates into better agricultural production, asset accumulation, and financial resilience.
The disparity becomes more evident in large land ownerships of more than 20 acres. The survey shows that 4.4% of households in the OC area own such large spaces, the highest percentage among all groups. Backward Classes and Scheduled Tribes account for 2.9% and 2% respectively in this category, while Scheduled Castes lag significantly behind at only 1%.
Although the overall share of large landowners is small, the relative gap highlights persistent structural inequality. She said that Scheduled Tribes are nearly twice as likely to own large tracts of land as Scheduled Tribes, underscoring their continued dominance of agricultural assets.
The SEEEPC findings indicate a broader pattern where land is one of the most important economic resources in rural areas of Telangana. It remains unevenly distributed. “The Reddy communities own the largest share of land relative to their population in the state, followed by the Velamas, followed by the Koyas (which belong to the Scheduled Tribes). In contrast, communities like SC Bidas and OC Muslims have disproportionately less land assets,” the survey said.
Interestingly, the survey revealed that land ownership has no relationship with social backwardness. For example, the SCs, by virtue of their greater ownership of dry or waste lands, obtain better results than the SCs and SCs, but this does not translate into a reduction in overall backwardness.
“There are many BC tribes like the Goldsmiths or BC Christians who do not own much land, yet they are less backward overall, by education and occupation. The BC class like the Kuruba (Koroma), where the vast majority of them own land, even if the land areas are small, are generally more backward.”
Survey results
Backward castes (BCs) constitute the largest social group in the state, accounting for 56.36% of the population. Scheduled Castes (SCs) constitute 17.4%, followed by Scheduled Tribes (STs) at 10.4% and General Or Other Castes (OC) at 11.9%. Nearly 12,000 individuals, or 3.4% of the population, chose to identify as “casteless.”
Among the individual communities, the Madiga community is the largest caste group with 36.54 lakh people, constituting 10.3% of the population. The Sheikh or Sheikh community is followed by 27.95 lakh (7.88%), and the Madiraj community is followed by 26.36 lakh (7.43%).
The Sugalis or Lambadis, also known as Banjaras, are the dominant Scheduled Tribe group with a population of 24.02 lakh, constituting nearly 65% of the total ST population in the state. The Yadava (Golla) community accounts for 20.17 lakh (5.69%), while the Reddy community, the most prominent among the OC groups, numbers 17.06 lakh or 4.81% of the population.
The total Muslim minority population is 44.57 lakh, which is 12.56% of Telangana’s population. Of these, 35.76 lakh are classified as backward class Muslims, primarily under the BC-E subcategory, with the Sheikh community being the largest group identifiable within it.
The expert group defined underdevelopment through an index called the Composite Backwardness Index (CBI), which is a statistically derived score ranging from 0 to 126, based on 42 equally weighted criteria across eight broad categories: education, occupation, living conditions, income, land and assets, gender, social discrimination, and access to finance.
While the average CBI score in the state is 81, as many as 135 of the 242 castes, representing 67% of the total population, scored above this average, meaning they are worse off than the average citizen in Telangana.
While SCs and STs are three times more backward than OCs in this index, BCs are 2.7 times more backward. “On the basis of population, 99% SCs, 97% STs and 71% SCs fall below the state average in terms of social development,” the report said.
The SC Dakkal community recorded the highest CBI score of 116, making it the most deprived community in the state. The BC-A community Pitchiguntla came in at 110. At the other end of the spectrum, the OC Kapu community had the lowest CBI score of 12.
Communities such as OC Jains (13), OC Raju (17), and OC Brahmins (22) also recorded very low levels of deprivation, reflecting their historical privilege in access to education, land and professional networks.
Famous sociologist Professor K. Purushottam Reddy The SEEEPC survey provides a critical opportunity to formulate a comprehensive development model that can transform Telangana into a socially, politically, economically just and environmentally sustainable state.
“I suggest the government to use the survey and other available statistical data sets to get the necessary insights and formulate a model of sustainable development for Telangana that can become an example and can be replicated across India,” he said.
Poverty alleviation efforts should be a major focus, with efforts tailored to demographic groups, i.e. local jurisdictions, Reddy said. These efforts must be tailored to specific communities and their social, economic and environmental environments. He said: “Any plans or schemes that are developed must center around the individual population centers represented by the local bodies.”
