New Delhi, Aug. 4: The Uttar Pradesh government is planning to do away with the reservation quota for Scheduled Tribes, committed by every government in India under the Indian Constitution.

The State has sent a proposal to this effect to the Central government to seek its approval, according to sources in the Prime Minister's Office.

Already, the State had a very small, just two per cent quota for the Scheduled Tribes. But now it wants to add this quota to the 27.5 per cent quota for the Other Backward Castes, explained the PMO officials.

At present, there are some 20 lakh Scheduled Tribe people settled mostly around Mirzapur district, according to Dilip Singh Bhuriya, chairman, National Commission on SCs and STs. The UP government has taken the plea that with the creation of Uttaranchal there are no more tribals left in the State and therefore it is well within its rights to abolish this quota. UP has always earmarked a small percentage for the SC/STs. Their plea was that they had a very small population of tribals in the State. After the creation of Uttaranchal, the State has taken the stand that it has no STs in UP.

That according to Bhuiya community is contrary to the truth. In fact on June 19, the SC/ST Commission held a meeting where it recommended certain tribes in UP to be listed in the ST list. These included the Bhuiya community, so far counted as SCs. According to the Commission, there are over 10,000 Bhuiyas distributed over 20 districts of UP. Similar is the case of Chero and many other tribals distributed over eight districts of UP.