Bengaluru: In a Deepavali gift to Scheduled communities, Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Sunday gave his assent to the Ordinance passed by the State Government hiking reservation for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST).

The Ordinance, once promulgated after the Governor’s assent, will increase reservation for SCs from 15 to 17 percent and STs from 3 to 7 percent.

A fortnight ago, the Karnataka Cabinet had approved hiking reservation of 2 percent (15 to 17 percent) for SCs and 4 percent  (3 to 7 percent) for STs, following which the Government came up with an Ordinance to increase job and education reservation quota for them.

Now that the Governor has given his nod, the Government has issued  a Gazette notification hiking reservation from 15 to 17 percent for SCs and from 3 to 7 percent for STs.

Following the Gazette noti-fication, the reservation hike will come into immediate effect, thus benefiting SC and ST communities, which have been demanding a reservation hike for long.