Religion, Caste And Tribe Based Reservation - 3

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<!--emo&:argue--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/argue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='argue.gif' /><!--endemo--> Draft Bill gives 3-year window for OBC quotas, exempts ‘specialised’ courses
Varghese K GeorgePosted online: Sunday, August 13, 2006 at 0000 hrs Print EmailMost controversial provision: minority institutions out of SC/ST/OBC quota ambit Quota What Next
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NEW DELHI, AUGUST 12:No quotas in higher-education specialised courses in both government-aided and unaided institutions, allowing up to three years to implement the 27% OBC quotas, keeping minority educational institutions out of the quota net.

These are the key provisions of the two draft quota Bills—one for aided, the other for unaided institutions—prepared by the Human Resource Development Ministry. After taking the views of other Ministries, the Bills will be introduced in Parliament this session and then sent to standing committees.

Obtained by The Sunday Express, the Bill excludes from the ambit of reservation, “a course or programme at high levels of specialisation including at the post-doctoral level.”

Significantly, this exemption was not in the two earlier drafts of the Bill. The exempted courses will be notified by the Centre “in consultation with the appropriate authority.”

While the Bill mentions 2007 as the year for the quota implementation, for the first time, it also addresses, in specific terms, the question of staggering the implementation and maintaining the number of seats in the unreserved category at its present levels.

The draft says each Central institution will “increase the number of seats...so that the number of seats excluding those reserved...is not less than the number of such seats available for the academic session immediately preceding the date of the coming in to force of this act.”

And if any institution cannot achieve the 54 percent required increase in intake in one year for “financial, physical or academic limitations,” it may be permitted to “increase the annual permitted strength over a maximum period of three years beginning with the academic session commencing in the calender year 2007.”

While the Government’s southern allies are against staggering the quotas, the most politically volatile proposal in the draft Bills is that they do not apply to government-aided minority educational institutions. The bill has a schedule in which such institutions are listed, including Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Hamdard and St Stephen’s College.

As per the two draft Bills which, for the first time, give statutory status to reservation in education, minority institutions under Article 30 (1) are exempt from reserving seats.

Although 30(1) was originally meant to encourage minority communities to set up and maintain educational institutions, the apex court had ruled that they could receive funds from the government and yet retain their minority status.

Since the legislation for reservations is new, it in effect nullifies the SC/ST reservations implemented in aided minority institutions by executive orders.

Senior HRD officials admitted this provision will be challenged in courts but what could trouble the UPA more is the political fallout. All minority communities and SC/STs are constituencies that the alliance is keen to please but the quota bills could threaten to pit one against the other.

varghese.george@expressindia.com