‘Balancing formula for merit and reservation soon’

BANGALORE: Former Karnataka Chief Minister M Veerappa Moily on Monday promised that a formula would be worked out to retain enough seats for general category students in institutes of higher education while implementing the 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Class (OBC) students.

Moily, appointed as chairman of the Oversight Committee on Reservation by the Centre, assured a time-bound programme to implement reservation for OBC students.

The committee will hold its maiden sitting in New Delhi on Tuesday. “The Committee will prepare a road map with a time-bound programme to implement 27 per cent reservation for OBCs without compromising merit and addressing apprehensions aired by the students,” Moily said.

Moily is credited for introducing the common entrance test (CET), a transparent test for admissions in medical and engineering colleges in Karnataka.

“There is a need to undertake confidence-building measures among those opposing reservation as they have apprehensions that the general quota would shrink and merit would be compromised by implementing reservation in elite institutions,” he said.