(Note: This news item includes views of our Director, Prof. S. N. Upadhyay)
http://news.indiainfo.com/2008
| IITs, IIMs may not get numbers for OBC quota seats | |
| Tuesday, April 22, 2008 10:51 [IST] | |
| Vineeta Pandey New Delhi: With the economic eligibility bars for creamy layer not being immediately revised, IITs and IIMs are now left wondering how they will fill up their OBC quota seats. A day after the human resource development ministry issued a notification to universities and technical institutes regarding implementation of reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC), there is growing concern among these premier institutes that it would be tough to fill the seats without the creamy layer students. IIT directors feel that even though this year may pass off smoothly since only 9% (880) seats are to be filled through quota, the cut-off marks may have to be lowered further next year. “This year won’t be a problem but during a meeting of the Joint Admission Board we decided to review the cut-off marks for next year,” said director of the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, SN Upadhyay. He says IITs may face a problem in filling the seats in the absence of creamy layer students. “We may have to lower the cut-off for OBC students to 20% from 10%,” Upadhyay said. IIMs, on the other hand, have the issue of fee hike to contend with too.All the seven IIMs are planning to increase their fees from this session. IIM-Ahmedabad has proposed the steepest increase of 175% in fees for its first year postgraduate programme for the 2008-09 session. This means fees go up from the current Rs2 lakh to Rs5.5 lakh. Sources in IIM-A said that according to their assessment based on past records only one-third of students can afford this amount. The rest are eligible for fee concessions. IIM-A said it would give full tuition fee waiver to students whose family income is below Rs1lakh. However, those who fall in the Rs1 lakh to Rs6 lakh bracket will get graded fee concession depending on the 'need' of the student. Given the fact that creamy layer students are out of the reservation criteria, several seats are likely to go vacant for want of students who can afford IIM fees even with a concession. | |