I will ensure merit exists within contours of equity, says Moily

Moily said, ‘‘Southern states, like Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu contribute the most to the country’s GDP, although they have had over 50 per cent reservation for the past 40 years. The knowledge society cannot be built only with 5,000 IIT graduates every year, it will need lakhs of educated youths from these institutions. So there is a need to upgrade their infrastructure.’’ He went on to add that ‘‘caste wars do not take place in college campuses of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, which have the highest percentage of reservation.’’

Moily said the committee would 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 students.

‘‘There is a need to undertake confidence building measures among those opposing reservation as they have apprehensions that general quota would shrink and merit would be compromised by implementing reservation in elite institutions,’’ said Moily. He is also chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission.

He said the ‘‘team of Manmohan Singh and Arjun Singh have gone about implementing reservations in a very methodical manner,’’ as the Oversight panel has been formed.

‘‘A new era of excellence would be ushered in as the Government plans to spend Rs 6,000 crore this year,’’ he said.

Allaying doubts on whether the infrastructure upgrade can be done in a short span of time, he said, ‘‘Nothing is impossible, we have built the silicon valley, the IT park in Bangalore. And there will be no discrimination.’’

The committee, after studying the reports of the expert sub-groups, would evolve a formula to meet the August 31 deadline.

After that, three sub-panels will give suitable inputs by July 31, 2006. The sub-panels have been formed to study the three categories of institutions — engineering institutions, management institutes and central universities — which will be affected by the imposition of OBC quotas.

The sub-group for engineering institutions is being headed by Prof M Anandakrishnan (former V-C of Anna university), the one for management institutions is being chaired by Samuel Paul (ex-director, IIM-Bangalore) and the group for Central universities is headed by Sayed Hamid (former V-C, Aligarh Muslim University).