IIT students protest against quota in New Delhi
Hundreds of students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) staged a protest march on Sunday in New Delhi against quotas in education. Faculties and alumni of New Delhi IIT also joined the protest.
The students carried placards that asked the government not to divide students on the basis of castes and pleaded for fair play.
We dont want the students to be divided on the basis of caste. We want to help students of all communities, no problem about that. But where is this vote politics going to lead this country? Certainly, India will not prosper with this kind of vote politics. This will have to be checked at some place, we cannot allow this to go on, said Ankush Gupta, an IIT student.
The students squatted on the road as police barricades stopped them from proceeding towards the president house.
The UPA Government has proposed 27 percent reservation for socially backward caste students in medical and engineering colleges including All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the IITs.
The move when implemented would take the total quota of reserved seat to 49.5 percent.
The Oversight Committee, headed by M Veerappa Moily, has said that a Rs 17,200 crore package would be needed to put in place the necessary infrastructure to implement the OBC quota in higher educational institutions.
The committee also has proposed to set up three new Indian Institute of Management (IIMs).
The financial package would be required to expand 54 percent of seats, in a staggered manner, in the educational institutes, so that the implementation of the 27 percent reservation for the Other Backward Class (OBC) students does not affect the number of seats for the general category ones.
The package would be required to be dispersed very urgently as the Committee desires to implement the quota as early as 2007-08 academic session. The Oversight Committee has also called for reviewing the implementation of the reservation policy every five and ten years.
However, it did not make any reference on the controversial issue of the creamy layer among the OBC quota and has left it to the Government.
Different political parties within the ruling UPA have not achieved any coherence on this issue. While DMK, RJD and LJP have demanded not to add the creamy layer restriction on the OBC quota, Left parties on the other hand has called for implementing quota with the creamy layer tag.