27% OBC, 10% EWS reservation in All India Quota for medical education

In a landmark decision, the central government has announced a 27% reservation for OBC, and a 10% reservation for EWS candidates in the All India Quota for undergraduate and postgraduate medical/dental courses (MBBS / MD / MS / Diploma / BDS / MDS) from the current academic year 2021-22 onwards.

Nearly 5,550 students will be benefit from the same. PM Narendra Modi held a meeting n July 26 and directed the concerned ministries to facilitate an effective solution to this long pending issue.

5550 students to benefit

This decision on medical education reservation would benefit every year nearly 1500 OBC students in MBBS and 2500 OBC students in postgraduation and also around 550 EWS students in MBBS and around 1000 EWS students in postgraduation.

Our Government has taken a landmark decision for providing 27% reservation for OBCs and 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Section in the All India Quota Scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical/dental courses from the current academic year. https://t.co/gv2EygCZ7N — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 29, 2021

About All India Quota (AIQ) in medical education

The All India Quota (AIQ) Scheme was introduced in 1986 under the directions of the Supreme Court to provide for domicile-free merit based opportunities to students from any state to aspire to study in a good medical college located in another state.

All India Quota consists of 15% of total available UG seats and 50% of total available PG seats in government medical colleges.

Initially, there was no reservation in AIQ Scheme up to 2007. In 2007, Supreme Court introduced reservation of 15% for SCs and 7.5% for STs in the AIQ Scheme.

When the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act became effective in 2007 providing for uniform 27% reservation to OBCs, the same was implemented in all the Central Educational Institutions viz. Safdarjung Hospital, Lady Harding Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University and Banaras Hindu University etc.

However, this was not extended to the AIQ seats of state medical and dental colleges.

The union government has now taken a historic decision to provide for 27% reservation for OBCs and 10% reservation for EWS in the AIQ Scheme.

The OBC students from across the country shall now be able to take benefit of this reservation in AIQ Scheme to compete for seats in any state.

Medical seats increased to accommodate reservation

In order to provide benefit to students belonging to EWS category in admission to higher educational institutions, a Constitutional amendment was made in 2019 which enabled the provision of 10% reservation for EWS category.

Accordingly, seats in medical / dental colleges were increased over two years in 2019-20 and 2020-21 to accommodate this additional 10% EWS reservation so that the total number of seats available for unreserved category do not reduce. In the AIQ seats, however, this benefit had not been extended so far.

Therefore, alongwith the 27% reservation for OBCs, 10% reservation for EWS is also being extended in AIQ seats for all the undergraduate / postgraduate medical/dental courses from the current academic year 2021-22.

This will benefit every year around more than 550 EWS students for MBBS and around 1000 EWS students for PG medical courses.

Reforms in medical education since 2014

This decision is also in sync with the significant reforms carried out in the field of medical education since 2014.

During the last six years, MBBS seats in the country have increased by 56% from 54,348 seats in 2014 to 84,649 seats in 2020 and the number of PG seats has increased by 80% from 30,191seats in 2014 to 54,275 seats in 2020.

During the same period, 179 new medical colleges have been established and now the country has 558 (Govt: 289, Pvt: 269) medical colleges.

Medical seat reservation to ensure OBC vote bank in UP?

The move is clearly yet another crucial signal to the large OBC vote bank in Uttar Pradesh. With the BJP desperate trying to keep the support of the dominant OBC vote, the Prime Minister had increased the number of OBC members in his council to 27 in the last rejig.

On Monday, after the PM had directed the associated ministries to resolve the OBC reservation issue under AIQ with top priority, a senior government source after the meet had said, "Under current conditions, 15% undergraduate and 50% PG seats in medical colleges run by state government are earmarked as All-India quota. Unlike Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes who have reservations in this quota for admission, there is none for OBCs."

Implementation of eligibility of this quota has been a long-standing demand from OBC groups and the issue is under litigation in several courts for many years.

The BJP was also pushing for the quota for EWS as the affirmative action for this category has been a pet mandate for the saffron party as a large section of upper caste supporters of the party have been pointing out that there are many who may not be socially backward but need help on grounds of economic backwardness

The final announcement is an interesting balancing act as it takes care of the interests of both socially and economically backward candidates without making anyone left out. This will help the BJP keep its voting constituencies engaged in a make-or-break election like UP.

The meeting on Monday chaired by the PM had come on the day when responding to a contempt of court petition moved by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam the Centre had conveyed to the Madras High Court on Monday that it would try to resolve the matter in a week’s time.

The BJP’s rival DMK had complained against the health ministry over the delay in acting on the earlier order of the same court on July 27, 2020 to implement the quota in the 2021-22 academic year

Earlier this month, the court had cracked the whip on the centre and laid down that it has no other option but to implement its order.

On Monday, Solicitor General Vivek Tankha had informed the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy that “on implementing OBC reservation for medical seats Under All India Quota (AIQ) in state government colleges, the centre’s decision is at a very advanced stage.”

Then the centre had sought one week's time to come out with a roadmap for the issue.

Read: PM reviews OBC, EWS reservation in All India Quota for medical education

Read: NEET 2020: SC rejects plea for 50% reservation of medical college seats for OBC candidates in TN

Read: NEET 2020: TN passes bill for reservation of govt school students in medical colleges