‘IITs will fulfill SC verdict on OBC quota’

This is because IITs are not prepared with their present infrastructure to handle the additional students who will be admitted, he added.

IITs have to expand their infrastructure (including labs, classrooms, faculty and hostel accommodation) and this needs some time, senior members of the administrations of five IITs said.

On fee exemption and free hostel accommodation and stipends to these students who will be admitted through the OBC quota just like the privilege enjoyed by ST/SC category students, Misra, who came back from Japan last night said, “I have no knowledge what the Centre wants from us and we have no communication so far.”

“Whatever government wants, we will carry out as even for the general category, we are only charging around Rs 22,000 of the total Rs two lakh we spend on each of them,” he said.

IITs have demanded last week that fees for the general category should be hiked by 50 per cent. Even then, the students will be paying one fourth of what IIT spends on each student, he said.

On SC verdict on exclusion of creamy layer, Misra said, “We have no idea what the government wants.”

However, the IITs are yet to upgrade their physical infrastructure and increase faculty members to cope with the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs as per the SC’s directives, administrators of IITs said.

Yesterday, the SC had upheld the law providing 27 per cent quota for OBCs in IITs and other elite educational institutions. The 27 per cent OBC quota is in addition to the normal annual intake of students in IITs.

On the cut off marks for the OBC category students, the IIT-JEE chairman Venkataramani declined to comment.

A meeting may soon be held among the IIT faculty members and the HRD ministry officials to discuss quota-related issues, sources said.

The administrators said, although mentally, the IITs were prepared for the OBC quota since last year, as they had to work on strengthening the physical infrastructure and improving the faculty strength in order to implement the SC’s order.

They said it was easier for IIMs to expand their infrastructure but the IITs have to get more equipped laboratories, classrooms as well as student accommodation besides additional fund as the OBC students may not be charged any fee just like SC/STs.