Quota bill for unaided bodies in winter session

THE STORM over reservation in aided higher-education institutions not quite over, the government now wants to bring a separate law to introduce 27 per cent OBC quota in private unaided higher-education institutions. The bill is likely to be introduced in Parliament's winter session.

Published on: Aug 31, 2006, 02:08:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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THE STORM over reservation in aided higher-education institutions not quite over, the government now wants to bring a separate law to introduce 27 per cent OBC quota in private unaided higher-education institutions. The bill is likely to be introduced in Parliament's winter session.

On Wednesday, HRD Minister Arjun Singh said the government was framing a draft bill. "It'll come into force in due course," he said.

On the necessity for a separate bill for unaided institutes (those which receive no funds from the government), Singh said: "There're certain things which need to be done. It was the cabinet's decision to bring a separate bill for unaided institutes."

The ministry had forwarded the bill for the cabinet's consideration on August 21 -- when the government decided to include the creamy layer in the ambit of OBC reservation and approved the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Bill for reservation in aided institutes. The bill has been referred to Parliament's standing committee.

The cabinet secretariat, however, returned the bill for unaided institutes, saying it required more discussion, especially with stakeholders.

In May, the HRD Ministry had held talks with deemed-to-be-universities and got their preliminary views. Some deemed universities had sought government funding for introducing 27 per cent OBC reservation -- a demand said to be unacceptable to the government. Another round of talks is likely to be conducted soon with the stakeholders before the bill is moved for the cabinet's consideration.

The chairman of a leading private deemed university said it was too early to react. "Let us wait and see how the government proposes to introduce the reservation," he said.

The bill -- which will affect institutes like BITS Pilani, Amity University and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education -- is likely to have provisions giving power to the government to regulate fee structure. The government wants fees and eligibility criteria for reserved categories (SCs, STs, OBCs) to be lower than that for general-category students -- an idea strongly opposed by private educational institutes.

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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