New Delhi: The Oversight Committee, set up to prepare a roadmap for reservations for OBCs in elite educational institutions, has projected an additional student intake of 80,557 with a 54 per cent capacity expansion of seats to implement the new quota.
However, this will involve an overall expenditure of Rs 16,563.34 crore – Rs 9,092.96 crore as non-recurring and Rs 7,470.38 crore as recurring expenses – over five years.
Of the total additional intake of students under the 27 per cent quota, 17 central universities will accommodate a major chunk of 63,005 students, followed by engineering colleges offering seats to 16,132 students, said statistics contained in the Committee's interim report.
A total of 1,42,757 students are currently enrolled in the agriculture, management, medical and engineering fields in the Central universities that were studied by the Veerappa Moily-led report.
The Committee, in its report presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently, pointed out that a 12,126-strong faculty would be required for the 54 per cent expansion of seats.
However, the sub-group on engineering felt not all institutions would be able to implement the 27 per cent quota in one go. It recommended that an enabling provision may be put in place for institutions hampered by special constraints or limitations to enable them to implement the quota in a phased manner over a period of not more than three years.
Management institutes wanted the reservations implemented over a period of time.
One of the major observations on academic aspects related to the OBC quota was that the IIMs conduct courses like fellow programmes, executive development programmes and faculty development courses other than the regular two-year postgraduate diploma programmes that lay down work experience, and sponsorship as eligibility criteria, the report said.
"The OBC reservation should not be extended to these categories and must be confined to the postgraduate diploma and equivalent programmes only," the sub-group said, adding there must be ‘no unjustifiable’ demand on institutes to lower admission standards.
A systematic review of the implementation of the OBC quota must be undertaken after five years to reform and effect improvements, it said.
Echoing similar views, the sub-group on engineering and technology said "the issue of academic excellence was a major concern" and under no circumstances should the cut-off figure be lowered to accommodate or fill the reserved seats for OBCs.
"It is an ideal situation for the top technical institutions to expand, diversify and grow on a massive scale," it pointed out.
The Moily report also suggested the creation of a monitoring committee in the Planning Commission to review the progress in implementing the OBC quota plan and the execution of detailed project reports giving a timeframe and required budgetary outlays for implementing the reservations.
Comments
0 comment