Mind after knee-jerk

Govt decision to hike seats is right thing for the wrong reasons8212;but the PM can change that

So the political class has spoken. The 27 OBC quota in Central institutions is now only a couple of months and a Bill away8212;a Bill to which no one in Parliament will object. And come June next year, the quotas will be in place. End of story. There are two ways to look at this. One, at the dark quota cloud waiting to burst this monsoon session and rain on India8217;s growth story. Two, at its only silver lining.

Certainly, the government8217;s quota decision is an unimaginative response of MPs in a hurry to create a lasting constituency for themselves using 8220;social justice8221; as a veritable WMD in political discourse. To expect an indifferent education bureaucracy to deliver on the promise of expanding the number of seats almost overnight strains credulity. Back-of-the-envelope calculations put the expenditure entailed in such an expansion at Rs 8,000 crore. Even if this money was available 8212; and it isn8217;t 8212; it is extremely unlikely that by next year it could be efficiently spent. Centres of academic excellence like IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, the National Law School in Bangalore, the Indian Institute of Science, will have to increase seats by 27 per cent without even a blueprint of how they are to go about doing so. Ordering extra furniture is the least of their worries.

This is where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh comes in. His personal campus experience, from a village school in Punjab to what he fondly calls the 8220;dreaming spires8221; of Oxford, his consistent stand on the need to balance access and equity with excellence and achievement, and, more importantly, his experience in reform could now translate 8220;increase in seats8221; to 8220;campus reform.8221; And what better time to start this reform than now, when you have armed yourself with the political shield of a 8220;quota8221; law? The Prime Minister keeps reminding us that India needs 150 billion for infrastructure. To roads, power, telecom and aviation, he should now add classroom and staff rooms, labs and hostels. Over the next four years, the number of seats in medical colleges will have to be raised, from the present 1.5 lakh to some 2 lakh; in engineering colleges from 5.3 lakh to 6.7 lakh. But the seat increase shouldn8217;t be just linked to the quota formula; OBC Bill or no OBC Bill, more and more seats are needed, more and more IITs, IIMs, medical colleges are needed for India to renew its current brand as a growing knowledge hub. India8217;s future depends on how this infrastructure upgrade story plays out. Too much is at stake. The Government has legislated in haste, the nation doesn8217;t have the option to repent at leisure.