Delhi Murky imbroglio In what could be regarded as Union human resource development minister Arjun Singh’s finest hour in Indian politics, Parliament passed the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Bill, 2006 on December 14 in the Lok Sabha and four days later in the Rajya Sabha. The Act provides for reservation of 27 percent seats for OBCs (other backward classes) in over 100 Central government sponsored higher education institutions. With this legislation total capacity reservation in Central institutions has risen to 49 percent, from 22 percent for SCs (scheduled castes — 15 percent) and STs (scheduled tribes — 7 percent). Capacity expansion under the new Act will be implemented over three years beginning this academic year in July/August as per the recommendation of the Oversight Committee chaired by senior Congress leader and former Karnataka CM, Veerappa Moily. The price tag: Rs.17,000 crore. However as per the Moily Committee’s formula, the existing capacity for general category (i.e merit) students won’t be affected as new capacity will be added to accommodate OBCs. The septuagenarian Arjun Singh, who had been struggling to retain his portfolio following dismal performance as education minister has with this master stroke bolstered his own and perhaps the Congress party’s electoral future. On December 18, perhaps for the first time after he set the ball rolling for OBC reservations last May, the nation got to hear his views while he responded to a five-and-a-half hour debate in Parliament. “India is an ancient civilization and a modern nation of 60 years. In between these two are 2,000 years of history. We have to proceed with caution if we are to set right all the wrongs of history. This Bill is one small effort and not the end of the matter,” he said, receiving obvious support from the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. Moreover responding to opposition criticism to the Bill exempting minority-promoted higher education institutions from its purview, Singh said that doing so would require a prior constitutional amendment. He also made plain his intention to bring private unaided colleges and deemed universities under the new legislation through an ordinance and force them to reserve 27 percent capacity for OBCs. The ordinance, if it comes through, will compel all higher educational institutions in the country to reserve 27 percent of seats for OBC students from this academic year (2007-2008). Not doing so, he says will give rise to “a suspicion in the public mind that the delay in policy formulation was engineered to permit private institutions to make windfall profits at least for one academic year.” Meanwhile the passage of the Bill through Parliament hasn’t fazed students of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), who were in the vanguard of anti-reservation protests last May. On the day the Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha, AIIMS students commenced a relay hunger strike, which will continue until the reservation case comes up for hearing in the Supreme Court in early January. “The Jessica Lall verdict…
