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   Change Quota-Reservation Policy

 

The Supreme Court (SC) reversed its own verdict recognizing the complexity involved to provide mandatory allocation of the 10% reservation for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) in national level Post Graduate (PG) medical colleges. Additional Solicitor- General Gopal Subramanian claimed that the since this year’s prospectus and it is complicated affair to allot 10% from the State 50% quota, the court should consider postponing this verdict to be applicable next year. The SC had passed its initial verdict on April 24 in response to a writ by many doctors who said the SC/ST students did not take the entrance test because there was no reservation for them. 

The reservation system in India is quota based, without standards, and a big mess. Some states, like Tamil Nadu, reserve up to 98% of the seats to various castes leaving only 2% for merit based students. Meritorious candidates from so-called lower castes can complete in the 2% leaving very little option for meritorious candidates from so-called forward classes to emigrate out of the state. In most cases, candidates who get admission score less than half of those who are denied seats in colleges. 

The only exception to this rule has been the Indian Institute of Technology colleges, Indian Institute of Management schools, and the Medical PG colleges. By virtue of an amendment in December and brought into force in January 2006, the Parliament in a near-unanimous ruling approved forced reservation even in colleges that do not take Government aid. 

3 Main Issues

Recently, there has been a spate of reservation specific discussions:

  • The Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh suggested that reservation be brought into these schools also. Students from all castes have been widely protesting this retrograde suggestion and many promised to boycott those who support reservation in these schools. 

  • Speaking to the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggested that companies broaden their portfolio of candidates and therefore initiated reservation protagonists in his Cabinet to clamor for reservation in the private sector. Almost all columnists, companies, colleges, students, and intellectuals have trashed both these suggestions.

  •  The SC reserved a judgment on the issue of whether Government employees who got into service on the basis of caste-based reservation should be promoted based on the same criteria. Many analysts have pointed out that allowing someone to get repeated promotions just because they belong to a so-called lower caste will seriously jeopardize the performance of the Government.

Not waiting for these issues to pan out, the Ministry of Social Justice and empowerment, has asked all Non-Governmental Organizations receiving over 50% of its budget from the Government and employing more than 20 people to reserve 49.5% of its employment for SC/ST and OBCs. Ministry officials quickly pointed out that the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government contractually required this and that they are only enforcing this rule.


Questions to Ask

The questions that need to be answered are:

  • Is it right to provide someone preferential treatment for admission in under-graduate courses based on his/her caste be given a leg up again for post-graduate degrees based on the same criteria?

  • Is it right to provide someone who has already been given preferential treatment in choice of study based on caste, be given preferential employment in the private sector, which operates solely on the basis of merit, for the same reason?

  • Is it right to provide someone who has already been given preferential treatment in a choice of study and also a job in the Government additional preferential treatment for promotions over his peers because of her caste? 

  • Is it right to provide the children of those who have already been given preferential treatment in choice of study and jobs in the Government the same sort of preferential treatment? 

Increasing Seats Is a Mirage

The latest ploy by politicians is to talk about increasing the number of seats available to students as if that is something that could be solved with the turn of a switch. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has announced that it will be reducing the number of engineering seats in 404 colleges by 22,722 seats because there is a shortage of faculty. 

The apex body of Indian industry Federation of India Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has asked the Government to arrest the rot in the Industrial Training Institutes (ITI). The survey studied 100 ITIs identified by the Government to become Centers of Excellence and found that non-availability of machines, spares, and accessories, lack of focus on staff training and development are key issues that are accelerating the rot. About 51% of these institutes also reported excess seat capacities, courses for only 38 of the 107 identified trades, and usage of 77% of their budget for salaries. With nearly 89% of the ITIs saying that they are understaffed and 77% of their budget used up for salaries, the institutes are already finding it hard to scale.

When parts of the Government, interestingly attached to the Human Resources Development Ministry, themselves say that they are cutting back on the number of seats and having difficulty scaling operations, the talk of increasing the number of seats to facilitate reservation is a mirage. 


Need Policy Change

The Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has made a successful career out of caste-politics, has said that he is amenable to providing 10% reservation quota to financially challenged forward class candidates. This is an appeasement strategy that has been used very well in Indian politics. By inviting part of those who oppose a retrograde policy the protagonist divides the opposition and therefore weaken it.

Weighed down by increasing stringent criticism of the reservation brigade, the Prime Minister has lately said that he wants a balance between social equality which compromising quality. For this to happen, the caste-based quota Reservation policy practiced in India is seriously flawed and needs urgent correction. 

India needs:

A system that can rank classes of people based on financial background, education level of parents, education level of individuals, ancestral property holdings by family collectively or individually, and organizations, trusts, or entities held, participated by, or operated by the family for the benefit of the family or the individual. 

  • A system that can rank classes of people based on financial background, education level of parents, education level of individuals, ancestral property holdings by family collectively or individually, and organizations, trusts, or entities held, participated by, or operated by the family for the benefit of the family or the individual. 

  • A tracking system that will monitor those who claim reservation based on caste to see their progress. In fact, a retrospective study needs to be initiated to study those who have availed this policy and see what their growth has been.

  • A policy change that requires those who have availed this policy multiple times—such as in choice of education, job, and perhaps promotion to be taken out of the reservation system. This will allow other eligible candidates to be also profit from this positive discrimination.