Different colleges, different OBC quotas?

Delhi government says central rule on quota doesn’t apply in nearly 20 colleges, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jun 11, 2008, 24:59:12 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Two different laws may regulate the implementation of OBC quota in colleges under Delhi University (DU) this year. The central law covers DU — a central university — but several colleges affiliated to it are fully funded by the Delhi government and the state law department believes the central law doesn’t apply to these colleges.

The department, in a note on May 16, stated that a fresh, state-specific law was required to implement the 27 per cent OBC quota in institutions fully funded and managed by the state government. There are 20 colleges — of which eight are professional — fully funded by the state government. The government is expected to take a final decision on the recommendation soon. Delhi Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely was not available for comment.

In a related but separate development, a committee that examined the implementation of OBC quota in eight professional institutions run by the state government has drawn out a five-year road map. The committee also agreed with the observation of the law department that a separate law for the state was required.

Maulana Azad Medical College, Maulana Azad Dental College, Delhi College of Engineering, Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology, Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbia College, Jawaharlal Nehru Homeopathic Medical College at Defence Colony, Delhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research and College of Fine Arts are the eight professional institutes of the Delhi government, of which five are affiliated to DU.

The Delhi law department’s contention is the Central Education Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, is not applicable to the institutions not receiving aid directly from the Centre. The committee on reservation in professional institutions, headed by state Higher Education Secretary G. Narendra Kumar, has recommended the 27 percent OBC quota be staggered over five years, and not three years as mandated by the central law. In the first two years, 2.5 per cent seats would be reserved for OBC students. In the third year, it would be five per cent. The remaining would be filled in the last two years. The committee has, however, not said from which year the reservation should be enforced. It has also suggested Rs 372 crore would be required to improve infrastructure and faculty to increase intake of students by 54 per cent in five years.

The move has upset academics in DU, who say admission in any college affiliated to DU should be mandated to go by the central act.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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