Five of the seven IITs and two of the six IIMs have been allowed to scale down the OBC quota implementation plan originally laid out by the Veerappa Moily Oversight Committee. HRD Ministry sources cited “practical reasons” given by these institutions why they have been allowed to stagger reservations.Only two IITs — Kanpur and Roorkee — will increase seats by 18 per cent and reserve 9 per cent for OBCs in the coming academic year. The Moily panel had asked all IITs to increase the seats by 18 pc every year for three years to achieve 54 per cent expansion, and simultaneously reserve 9 per cent seats for OBCs every year to meet the target of 27 per cent.The country’s top engineering institutions can now go easy in the first year but sources po inted out that they will have to make up for the lag in the next two years. IIT Delhi has been given the maximum leverage — it will increase seats only by 10 per cent and, therefore, reserve only 5 per cent for OBCs in the next academic session.The remaining four IITs — Mumbai, Chennai, Kharagpur and Guwahati — will increase seats by 13 per cent and reserve half of that for OBCs.In contrast, four of the six IIMs have fallen in line, and will follow the roadmap charted out by Moily. IIM Lucknow leads the way with 16 per cent expansion in the first year, followed by Ahmedabad at 12 per cent, Indore at 8 per cent and Kolkata, 6 per cent. All these institutes will reserve half the new capacity for OBC students.The remaining two IIMs have been allowed minor changes — Bangalore will increase seats by 13 per cent, a point below Moily’s 14 per cent, and Kozhikode by 8 per cent. he Indian School of Mines, too, has reduced its expansion target for the first year from Moily’s 18 per cent to 11 per cent. However, other premier institutions such as IISc Bangalore and School of Planning and Architecture will expand by 18 pc for the coming academic session.
