IIMs struggle to fill reserved quota

Even as the government and academic institutions are battling the sensitive and complex issue of increasing seats at IIMs to accommodate 27 per cent reservation for OBCs (Other Backward Castes) that will take the total reservation to 50 per cent, some IIMs have been struggling to fill up the existing 22.5 per cent reservation for SC/ST (Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe).

"Every year around 5-8 seats in the SC/ST reserved category are vacant as we cannot compromise on the quality. We don't find enough candidates that meet the prescribed cut-off mark and the seats have to be filled up by general category students as the seats cannot be wasted," says admission in-charge of IIM-Indore.

With the institute increasing its intake from 120 to 180 this year, the number of reserved seats will increase from 27 to 40.

Of the total 1.58 lakh students that took the CAT examination last year, 8,991 were from the SC/ST category. With 22.5 per cent reserved for them across the six IIMs, the percentage translates into more than 300 seats in a total of around 1,450 seats.

This means about 3.5 per cent of them get admitted to one of the IIMs against less than one per cent for the general categories, sources from IIMA admission department say.

With the creamy part of these SC/ST students opting for IIM- A, B and C, the other IIMs are finding it tough to get quality students. "Some IIMs are not able to get qualified students and they have to choose from the remaining lot, which sometimes do not meet the requirements," the source adds.

Acknowledging that the institute also faces similar situations, P R Suresh, former admission in-charge IIM Kozhikode, says: "We have to fill up seats with candidates who are not essentially the students desired otherwise."

IIM officials say that while anything below 90 percentile may not guarantee even an interview call to any of the IIMs, some of the IIMs have to drop the cut-off percentile to accommodate the reserved candidates. At times as low as 75 percentile, says an official.

The CAT examination centre which is being shifted to Bangalore from November this year is also, for the first time, planning to make public the CAT results.

They are planning to disclose the overall percentile cut-off and the sectional percentile cut-off, for both the general and SC/ST candidates for IIMs.