27% quota for OBCs, 10% for economically weaker sections in medical courses: Centre

New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday announced a 27 per cent reservation for OBCs and a 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections in the all India quota scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses.

The quotas will be applicable from the current academic year of 2021-’22. The All-India Quota scheme consists of 15% of the total available undergraduate seats and 50% of all postgraduate seats in government medical colleges.

The reservation is meant for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses — MBBS, MD, MS, Diploma, BDS and MDS — from the current academic year (2021-22) onwards.

The decision is expected to benefit 1,500 students from the OBC community studying in MBBS courses and 2,500 of them in postgraduation. Among the economically weaker sections, the move will help 550 students in MBBS courses and 1,000 in postgraduation, the health ministry said in an official release.

“This will immensely help thousands of our youth every year get better opportunities and create a new paradigm of social justice in our country,” PM Modi tweeted hailing the decision as a ‘landmark’ one.

“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.,” the government said.

What is AIQ scheme?

All India Quota scheme was introduced in 1986 under a Supreme Court direction. The aim was to enable students of another state to get reservation benefits in other states as well. Until 2008, there was no reservation in the All India Quota scheme. In 2007, the Supreme Court introduced reservations of 15% for SCs and 7.5% for STs in the all-India 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 such as the 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.

Being a Central scheme, the Central list of OBCs shall be used for this reservation. Around 1,500 OBC students in MBBS and 2,500 in post-graduation will benefit through this reservation.

In order to provide benefit to students belonging to the EWS category in admission to higher educational institutions, constitutional amendment was made in 2019 which enabled the provision of 10 per cent reservation for the EWS category.