IIMs not sure about filling all OBC seats

Supreme Court ruling on OBC quotas: educational institutions ready to live with it...

Even as the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) get set to implement the 27 per cent reservation for other backward classes (OBCs) following the Supreme Court go-ahead, institute officials are not sure if they will be able to fill all OBC seats from the "non-creamy layer" category.

IIM officials said finding suitable candidates would not be a problem in the first phase, when only 6-8 per cent expansion would be carried out. However, some seats could be left vacant after second and third phases, they said.

While some IIMs, like IIM-Lucknow, say they had interviewed adequate number of OBC candidates, most IIMs are now working out their admission lists to see how many OBC students will make the cut.

A total of 15 per cent seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 7.5 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes (STs). However, in most IIMs, nearly 30 per cent seats for STs remain vacant as suitable candidates are not found. Sources said last year, IIM-Ahmedabad could not fill nearly 10 seats out of the 19 that were reserved for STs.

At IIM-Indore, several seats for ST candidates were converted into general category seats.

"Filling ST seats has always been a problem at most IIMs. We managed to fill our SC/ST quota last year and we have to see if will be able to get the right candidates to fill all seats under the OBC quota,"said a source at IIM-Kozhikode.

He added the number of applications under the ST quota was very small.

The problem is also faced by IIM-Lucknow, where out of the 22 seats reserved for the STs, an average of five to six have to be scrapped every year.

There is also a marked difference when it comes to percentile cut-offs for SCs and STs. At IIM Kozhikode, the cut-off is between 70 and 80 for SCs and STs and nearly 98 for general category students.