Seats vacant in tech schools amid quota cry

Seats vacant in tech schools amid quota cry

Sanjay Singh NEW DELHI, Oct. 3: While the Centre is attempting to increase the number of seats in higher educational institutions to ensure smooth implementation of OBC reservation, many states have not filled up vacant seats in their technical institutions, thus depriving students of valuable opportunities. The states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Kerala have an approved intake of 1,26,198 seats per year. However, they have been able to fill only a total of 1,18,031 seats, leaving 8,167 seats vacant. A senior official of the Union HRD ministry told The Statesman that for the past eight years, the position of vacant seats has remained the same. This adds up to as many as 65,336 vacant seats till date. Of these vacant seats, 30 per cent are in Meghalaya, 18 per cent in Kerala and over five and six per cent in Karnataka and Maharashtra respectively. Other states have not furnished figures of vacant seats in technical institutions so far. While state governments have cited various reasons for their inability to fill up vacant seats, according to AICTE guidelines, a technical institution is given seats as per its infrastructure. If senior AICTE officials are to be believed, funds and aid through government agencies and other sources are taken on behalf of these vacant seats too which adds to the institutions’ coffers. State governments, too, are largely indifferent about sorting out the issue of vacant seats in these technical institutions. The dual control of UGC and the AICTE over institutions conducting management courses has compounded the situation. Consensus eludes UPA: PMOn Board PM’s Special Flight, Oct. 3: A consensus on how to handle the ‘‘creamy layer’’ concept in reservations continues to elude the ruling UPA coalition, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh admitted today. Some elements of the coalition – Left parties and the CPI-M in particular – had stated that the “creamy layer” should be excluded, he said while talking to reporters on board his special aircraft while returning from Johannesburg to New Delhi. n PTI