27% RESERVATION FOR THE OBCS AND 10% QUOTA FOR THE ECONOMICALLY WEAKER SECTIONS

THE CONTEXT: The Union Health Ministry has announced 27% reservation for the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) and 10% quota for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in the all-India quota (AIQ) scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses from 2021-22.

Analysis:

• The new reservation provision will be implemented in this year’s admission
• All undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses, including dental, will have reservations for OBCs and economically weak sections from 2021-22 onwards.
• Nearly 1,500 OBC students in MBBS and 2,500 OBC students in post-graduation will be benefitted from this reservation every year, apart from 550 students from the economically weaker sections in MBBS and around 1,000 in the post-graduation, every year.

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.

WHAT DOES THIS OBC QUOTA IN AQI MEANS?

• Students belonging to OBC can now apply to any government medical or dental college to any other state under this quota.
• This was a long-pending issue as OBCs did not have any all-India quota for medical admission.
• State government medical colleges have 15% reservation in undergraduate seats and 50% in post-graduate seats for All India Quota.
• Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled (ST)s has reservation under the All India quota. So OBC students if migrated to another state could not reap avail of any reservation.

RESERVATION FOR EWS

• In 2019, a constitutional amendment was made to provide 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections.
• Accordingly, the seats in medical and dental colleges were increased so that unreserved categories do not get affected. But this category was not included in the All India quota scheme.