THE OVERSIGHT Committee, formed to chalk out a road map for implementation of the 27 per cent OBC quota in central educational institutions, has sought a review of the reservation policy every five or 10 years. But it has remained silent on the contentious issue of creamy layer -- those from backward classes, but economically sound.
THE OVERSIGHT Committee, formed to chalk out a road map for implementation of the 27 per cent OBC quota in central educational institutions, has sought a review of the reservation policy every five or 10 years. But it has remained silent on the contentious issue of creamy layer -- those from backward classes, but economically sound.
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In its report finalised on Wednesday, the committee headed by Veerappa Moily has also recommended that higher education be taken to the backward areas of the country. For this, it wants three more IIMs, institutes like IITs and medical colleges in those areas.
The panel also wants the government to start new scholarships to encourage students from backward classes to pursue higher education.
It has recommended the creation of new infrastructure in central educational institutions to admit the additional load of 54 per cent students from next year. The report tells how the institutes should plan to implement the 27 per cent OBC quota within three years. The committee has also revised the financial package needed to implement the quota from Rs 16,500 crore to Rs 17,200 crore.
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The committee decided to leave the issue of creamy layer to the government. Moily told reporters: "Although we said in the interim report that we will take a view on the issue in the final report, we are not making any reference."
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The committee decided to leave the issue of creamy layer to the government. Moily told reporters: "Although we said in the interim report that we will take a view on the issue in the final report, we are not making any reference."
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.
