Reservation move is a month old

NEW DELHI: The draft bill to facilitate reservation of seats for OBCs was moved by the HRD ministry a month ago.

The bill seeks to introduce reservation for socially and educationally backward classes for admission into 19 central government universities, seven IITs, six IIMs, and AIIMS.

The Constitution (93rd Amendment) Act 2005 came into force as Article 15(5) on January 20 this year after receiving the President’s seal. It gives the Centre the power to make any special provisions, by law, for admission of socially and educationally backward classes in educational institutions, including private ones, whether aided or unaided.  

But to implement this, the government first needs a law. So a draft bill, applying only to central government institutes, was moved to the Cabinet secretariat on March 7. The HRD ministry says the views of the ministries of home affairs, health and family welfare, agriculture, social justice and empowerment, tribal affairs, and law were taken while preparing the draft note.

But HRD Minister Arjun Singh has clarified in his note to the Election Commission that a decision regarding percentage of seats is yet to be taken.