Certain aspects of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a method for wireless communication by a user equipment (UE). The method generally includes transmitting a scheduling request (SR) to a base station (BS) to request resource allocation for data transmission, wherein the SR is selected between at least one coverage-enhancement SR configuration and another SR configuration at the UE for requesting the resource allocation for the data transmission and receiving an indication indicating the resource allocation for the data transmission.