IITs to go for 27% quota in 3 phases

Within a week of the Supreme Court verdict upholding 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in higher educational institutions...

Within a week of the Supreme Court verdict upholding 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in higher educational institutions, the seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) declared on Wednesday that they would implement the quota in phases, from this year onwards.

But the three new IITs in Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh will implement the 27 per cent quota in one go.

Addressing a press conference at IIT-Delhi on Wednesday, the seven IITs, along with Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University and Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad, announced

their decision to implement 9 per cent reservation for OBC students from the coming academic session, beginning July this year. The quota implementation is scheduled to be completed in three years, by 2010.

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“This year, the institutes will have 9 per cent seats reserved for OBC students at the undergraduate as well as post-graduate level. By JEE-2010, the seats will gradually increase to 27 per cent, based on the proposals submitted by individual institutions to the empowerment committee and accepted by the Government of India,” said Prof S C Saxena, director of IIT Roorkee.

The IITs are the first set of central government institutions to declare their roadmap for quota implementation.

There are about 4,000 seats in all the seven IITs. These seats would be increased to about 4,500 in 2008-09, apart from the 360 seats to be offered by the three new IITs.

At present, the sum total of students admitted every year in the seven IITs, IT BHU and ISM Dhanbad is 4,880. With 9 per cent reservation of seats for OBC, the institutes will witness 13 per cent increase in the intake of students in 2008, which by 2010 will be 54 pc.

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Asked if the existing infrastructure could support the increased intake, the directors said they were prepared for the challenge. “The grant of Rs 770 crore is sufficient for building the infrastructure, and we are taking the OBC reservation as a challenge that we will overcome,” said Surender Prasad, IIT-Delhi director.

Wednesday’s decision was taken at a joint admission board meeting held here. The group decided to go by the Supreme Court directive on the issue of creamy layer. “There will be two separate merit lists for the different categories. Regarding the verification of category status of a candidate, the existing rules and norms of the Government of India shall apply,” said Prasad.

A decision to admit 120 students to each of the new IITs that are being set up in Rajasthan, Patna and Hyderabad was also taken at the meeting. The three institutes will implement 27 pc reservation for OBCs from this year itself.