The government has decided to categorise communities whose population share is less than 0.5 percent of the country’s total population into minority groups.

The decision was endorsed by a Cabinet meeting on Thursday to facilitate Section 2(b) of the National Assembly Election Act, 2019.

According to Minister for Communication and Information Technology and government spokesperson Rekha Sharma, communities that make up less than 0.5 percent of the country’s total population, as per the latest national census, will be categorised as minority communities.

However, the categorisation will not be applied to the Dalit community who are already included in the Dalit cluster, said Sharma.