With Lok Sabha elections just a few months away, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh is all set to bring an ordinance to implement the 10 per cent reservation for economically poor among general category in education and service sector.

The ordinance is expected to be approved in the state Cabinet meeting slated for Friday, a senior official told ‘The Pioneer’ here on Thursday.

The Gujarat government has already implemented the 10 per cent quota for economically poor among general category approved by Parliament. It became the first state in the country to give 10 per cent reservation to the poor among the upper castes. 

Jharkhand has also implemented this quota. 

Sources say that UP officials in the Legal department had contacted their counterparts in Gujarat to get details of the quota ordinance.

“The draft of the ordinance is ready. It has been cleared by the legal cell and now awaits Cabinet approval,” the official said.

BJP parliamentary polls in-charge of UP and Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Wednesday had said that the state government would soon implement the 10 per cent reservation for the poor among general category in the state. 

After Gujarat and Jharkhand, UP will be the third state to implement this reservation if the ordinance gets Cabinet clearance.     

Meanwhile, a meeting between Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who holds the Higher Education portfolio, and state and private universities, approved a proposal for implementing the 10 per cent reservation for upper caste poor in higher education institutions once it was cleared by the Cabinet.

There are 49 universities in the state, including four Central universities,15 state universities and 27 private universities. There are over 44,000 seats in these universities.