Mandal II may be put on hold

THE QUOTA for OBCs in centrally funded higher-education institutions -- if at all it comes -- is unlikely to be enforced from the 2006-07 academic year. Reasons: the deadlines for admission are getting closer and the government wants wider consultation before going ahead with the proposal.

Published on: May 11, 2006, 14:35:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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THE QUOTA for OBCs in centrally funded higher-education institutions -- if at all it comes -- is unlikely to be enforced from the 2006-07 academic year. Reasons: the deadlines for admission are getting closer and the government wants wider consultation before going ahead with the proposal.

Sources say the draft reservation bill may reach the Group of Ministers for wider consultation. "It is one of the possibilities," a top government functionary told HT, adding that the bill is being referred for cabinet consideration.

The need for consultation is mainly because of the controversy the proposal has created -- protests by students and resistance from within the government. Even the National Knowledge Commission is not in favour. After a meeting with the PM on Wednesday, panel chief Sam Pitroda said: "We conveyed to the PM the commission's views on quota. There is no change in our stand."

Even as the government continues to face heat over the issue, Maharashtra has gone ahead with a similar decision on quota. The state cabinet on Wednesday cleared 50 per cent reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs in private educational institutions offering vocational courses. An ordinance will be sent to governor for approval and a bill will be tabled in the monsoon session of the assembly.

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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