'No staggered quota plans'

NEW DELHI: Stung by reports of division in the oversight committee set up to prepare a roadmap to implement reservation for OBCs in elite educational institutions, its chairman Veerappa Moily on Friday said no decision has been taken to implement the quota on a staggered or deferred basis.

A day after one of its members BL Mungekar, who is also a Planning Commission member, strongly advocated the need to implement the proposal in one go, Mr Moily said “it is not correct to say that the committee has taken any decision to suggest the implementation of reservation for OBCs on a staggered or deferred basis.”

“Neither the chairman nor any member of the committee has formed any opinion about it. The discussions are in a fluid stage and a reference is purely speculative,” Mr Moily said in a statement.

After the committee’s meeting on Thursday, Mr Moily had said that while reservation in central educational institutions can be done in one go, in state universities, private and deemed universities, it can be done later.

Various options were being deliberated with regard to implementation of reservations, he had said. Mr Mungekar had said there was no question of staggering the implementation of reservations. The clear-cut mandate of the committee was to implement 27% reservation for OBCs from academic year ’07-08.

Terming as “speculative” reports about mandate of the committee, Moily said the mandate was to implement 27% reservation for OBCs in institutes of higher learning and assess additional infrastructure and other requirements for increasing the overall availability of seats to a level so that the present level of seats available to the general category students did not decline.