“This decision would benefit nearly 1,500 OBC students in MBBS and 2,500 OBC students in postgraduate courses and also around 550 EWS students in MBBS and around 1,000 EWS students in postgraduate courses every year,” said the official source.
TFM Desk
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday announced 27 percent reservation for OBCs and 10 per cent reservation for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in the All India Quota (AIQ) Scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical / dental courses from the academic year 2021-22 onwards.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had directed the concerned Union Ministries to facilitate an effective solution to this long pending issue in a meeting held on July 26, 2021, an official source said on Thursday.
“This decision would benefit nearly 1,500 OBC students in MBBS and 2,500 OBC students in postgraduation and also around 550 EWS students in MBBS and around 1,000 EWS students in postgraduation every year,” said the official.
The All India Quota (AIQ) Scheme was introduced in 1986 under the directions of the Supreme Court to provide for domicile-free merit based opportunities to students from any State to aspire to study in a good medical college located in another State.
All India Quota consists of 15 percent of total available UG seats and 50 per cent of total available PG seats in government medical colleges. Initially, there was no reservation in the AIQ Scheme up to 2007. In 2007, the Court introduced a reservation of 15 per cent for SCs and 7.5 per cent for STs in the AIQ Scheme.
When the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act became effective in 2007 providing for uniform 27 per cent reservation to OBCs, the same was implemented in all the Central Educational Institutions viz. Safdarjung Hospital, Lady Harding Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University and Banaras Hindu University etc. However, this was not extended to the AIQ seats of State medical and dental colleges.
The official source claimed that the present Government is committed to providing due reservation both to the backward category as well as the EWS category. The Union Government has now taken a historic decision to provide for 27% reservation for OBCs and 10% reservation for EWS in the AIQ Scheme.
The OBC students from across the country shall now be able to take benefit of this reservation in AIQ Scheme to compete for seats in any State. Being a Central Scheme, the Central List of OBCs shall be used for this reservation.Accordingly, seats in medical / dental colleges were increased over two years in 2019-20 and 2020-21 to accommodate this additional 10% EWS reservation so that the total number of seats available for unreserved category does not reduce. In the AIQ seats, however, this benefit had not been extended so far, the source added.