Nearly 12 lakh people in Telangana opted for the ‘No Caste’ option in the Telangana Socio Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste Survey (SEEEPC) 2024.

Of the 3,54,77,554 people who responded in the survey, this was 3.4% of the population in the State. The survey is colloquially referred to as Caste Census.

The Independent Expert Working Group (IEWG) Report 2025 — which offers nuanced interpretation of the survey data — mentions the education levels of people in the No Caste group, percentage of them who hold government and private jobs, income slabs, extent of lands they own and others.

It observed that compared to groups across Other Castes (OC), Backward Classes (BC), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) categories, No Caste individuals occupy elite positions at disproportionately high rates relative to their 3.4% population share.

“Yet even as they assert caste neutrality, they continue to operate within institutional structures where caste remains a determining factor for access to rights, opportunities, and recognition, often exposing contradictions between claimed identity and systemic privilege, and revealing patterns where detachment from caste identity typically occurs after individuals have attained a certain degree of social and economic privilege,” as per the report.

While this group was clubbed with Other Castes (OC) in the survey data, the Expert Group stated that it felt the group cannot be clubbed with OCs as it is not known what castes they belong to.

“Despite identifying as caste-neutral, 43.3% of “No Caste” individuals reported possessing caste certificates—only marginally lower than the State average of 47.8%.This reflects a complex reality: individuals may retain their original certificates to access educational or employment benefits, or because institutional processes continue to demand caste disclosure, irrespective of self-identification,” as per the IEWG report available on the Directorate of Economics and Statistics website (https://www.des.telangana.gov.in/).

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Altogether, 11,96,482 people opted for “No Caste”. Of them, 7.7% hold government jobs of “professional nature”, which is higher than the State average of 2.8%. And, 13.3% are engaged in private professional jobs compared to 7.4% at the State level.

Of the people in the group, 73% reside within Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits and 13% in surrounding districts. The representation of the group in Nizamabad, Nirmal and Hanumakonda was small.