OBC quota money may be spent for general use

With the court staying the quota implementation, the HRD ministry does not want to return the grant.

With a Supreme Court stay order halting Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh's plan to implement OBC quota in central educational institutions, the ministry is trying to use the money allocated for increasing the number of OBC seats for general expansion of infrastructure and capacities in these institutions.

"As the stay on quota implementation continues, we have proposed to utilise the huge resources allocated for the expansion of OBC seats for general expansion in these institutions," a senior official in the ministry told Business Standard.

The ministry, which sent the proposal to the Cabinet Secretariat some time ago, has been told to discuss the matter with the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) of the Ministry of Finance. Ministry officials are preparing a Cabinet note following last week's discussions.

"The Supreme Court stay is only on quota for OBCs. This means we can go on with the expansion process. So we are proceeding with a Cabinet note seeking to utilise the money under the normal expansion head. If the court vacates the stay later, we can proceed with the 27 per cent quota as well," said the official.

The ministry is serious about using the money in 2008-09 as it could not use the allocation for 2007-08 and the money had to be returned to the finance ministry after the revised estimates were finalised.

In the previous Budget, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had allocated Rs 2,698 crore for the central educational institutions under the HRD ministry for 54 per cent increase in the number of seats.

According to officials, in the Budget for 2008-09, an allocation of about Rs 2,522 crore has been made for central universities, IITs, IIMs, NITs etc, for this purpose.

"We were not able to utilise the money provided to us last year due to various reasons. We do not want to repeat this and that is why we will use the financial momentum provided in the Budget for an overall expansion of the institutes," he said.

The proposal would lead to utilisation of money under non-recurring costs to build infrastructure and recurring costs would be dealt with later, he said.

In pursuance of the 93rd Constitution (Amendment) Act, 2005, which provides for the state (Parliament or other legislatures) to make laws for advancement of SCs, STs or OBCs in matters of admission to educational institutions, the government brought the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Bill, 2006, which provides for 27 per cent reservation for OBCs.

Following protests from various quarters against such a move, an Oversight Committee recommended a 54 per cent expansion (over three years) in central educational institutions so that the number of general seats is not reduced.

But the Supreme Court stayed the quota implementation last year and asked for valid data to support such a move. Since then, the matter is pending in the Supreme Court.