The issue of reservation in Education - TOI - 18/01/2008

CAT OUT OF THE BAG

6% OBCs make it to IIM shortlist sans quota

Hemali Chhapia I TNN

Mumbai: The latest figures on admissions to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) lend a new twist to the debate on quotas for Other Backward Class (OBC) students.
Data collected by TOI from six IIMs (all barring IIM-Shillong) shows that the IIMs have shortlisted over 575 OBC students for group discussions and personal interviews (GD/PI) on the basis of their performance in the common admission test (CAT-2007). In all, OBC students shortlisted for the GD/PI process form a little over 6% of the total students selected and all of them have made it without any reservation.
The data thus debunks claims by the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry about the lack of OBC students in the “elite’’ IIMs. The figures also prove that a section of OBC students have made it to the IIMs on sheer merit. The government is keen on introducing a staggered 27% quota for OBCs over a three-year period but the Supreme Court has ordered a stay for more clarity on the issue. Albeit, all seven IIMs have reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Since the policy is still on hold, OBC applicants this year were considered on par with general category students for admission to IIMs. IIM-Kozhikode shortlisted the maximum number of such meritorious OBC students (254) while the least enrolments were made at IIM-Bangalore (two). The overall percentage of enrolment is lower than that for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) last year. TOI had reported that the seven IITs had shown that almost 14% of those in the general category were OBCs.
As with the IITs, the IIMs, too, had asked students to declare whether they were OBCs in their application forms. “Students were also asked to submit caste certificates with their CAT forms,’’ said Ashish Bhattacharya, admissions chairperson at IIM-Calcutta.
But unlike the SC/ST and physically challenged categories, no separate cut-off score was used to shortlist OBCs.
Admissions chairperson P R Bhatt at IIMKozhikode explained that the institution had sent letters to 1,400 students from the general category. Of these, 254 had declared themselves as OBC candidates. “There was no separate cut-off for OBC students,’’ Bhatt added.
IIM-Indore, where 141 of the 1,730 shortlisted candidates are from OBCs, also noticed that there was barely any difference in the performance of general and OBC candidates. While the minimum score of general candidates was 98.09 percentile, that for OBCs was 96.76 percentile. However, the minimum scores drop significantly when one looks at the SC (84.40 percentile) and ST (76.30 percentile) candidates shortlisted.
Even if the Supreme Court stay remains in force until the admission for the 2008 batch is completed, IIM-Ahmedabad will manage to fill 138 open seats, 38 SC seats and 19 ST seats, besides eight slots for the physically challenged.
But if the apex court rules that Other Backward Class s have to be included from the coming academic year, IIM-A will have to add more seats and take in 192 open category students, 17 Other Backward Class students (6%), 42 SC students and 21 ST candidates.
hemali.chhapia@timesgroup.com