Reserved seats, in plain terms

Karnataka reserves a share of government seats for particular categories. The categories are: Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Category-1, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, and Economically Weaker Sections. Which one applies to you is decided by your community, and Category-1 through 3B together account for roughly a third of government seats.

Three practical things matter far more than the percentages:

The certificate is what establishes your category, and it is issued by a Tahsildar. Apply for it early. Families lose reserved seats every single year not because they were ineligible but because the certificate was not ready when counselling happened.

An income certificate is not needed to claim a reserved seat under SC, ST, Category-1, 2A, 2B, 3A or 3B. It is needed separately for most scholarships. These are two different documents for two different purposes, and confusing them costs people time.

Government-quota seats require seven years of study in Karnataka. General Merit seats carry no such requirement but have higher cut-offs. If your family has moved between states, check this early rather than at admission.

You may also hear that the state raised the SC share to 17 per cent and the ST share to 7 per cent. A law to that effect was passed in 2022, but it runs into the Supreme Court's overall ceiling on reservation and admissions have continued on the older figures. Whatever the news says in any given year, the seat matrix published by the Karnataka Examinations Authority for that year is what actually applies.