THE seven Indian Institutes of Technology, the National Institutes of Technology, the Benaras Hindu University and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, which admit students through a Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for various engineering courses, have decided to implement 27 per cent OBC reservation in a phased manner.
This was decided at a meeting of the Joint Admission Board of the JEE, on April 16 at IIT Delhi. Representatives of the seven IITs, an official from the Ministry of Human Resource Development and representatives from the NITs, BHU and ISM attended the meeting.
From the coming academic session onwards, seven IITs shall implement the OBC quota. This year we will reserve 9 per cent for OBCs and the full 27 per cent quota will be achieved in 2010, said Professor Surendra Prasad, Director, IIT Delhi. In addition, he said, three new IITs coming up in Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh will admit 120 students each.
They will implement 27 per cent reservation from this year, he said. In all, the number of seats for the IITs, NITs, BHU and ISM would go up by 880 520 because of reservation and 360 in the three new IITs.
About the creamy layer, we will go by the instructions of the Government of India. Family income will be the criterion. The OBC students will be asked to present a certificate at the time of counselling, saying they do not belong to the creamy layer, Prasad said.
The IIT Joint Entrance Board will bring out two merit lists, one for the general category and one for OBC candidates, he said. The results will be announced on schedule. S.C. Saxena, Director, IIT Roorkee, said: The existing IITs will increase student intake by 54 per cent to put in place 27 per cent reservation by the 2010 academic session. Both undergraduate and postgraduate courses will take OBC candidates in compliance with the reservation law.
Gautam Barua, Director, IIT Guwahati, said the directives of the Supreme Court would be used to exclude the creamy layer. The cut-off mark for OBC category students shall be 90 per cent of the cut-off for general category students in the JEE, Prasad said.
The IIT Directors said that they did not foresee a decline in the quality of education owing to the implementation of reservation. But they are worried whether they have the teachers to meet the increase in intake. In IIT Delhi, for instance, there are 556 faculty positions, of which only 420 are filled. According to Prasad, 856 faculty members will be required once 27 per cent reservation is implemented. The situation in other IITs is similar.
The Directors expressed their concern over the salaries of and facilities for faculty members, which they thought should be improved substantially.
Purnima S. Tripathi
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