Chipping in 10,000 dollars each to counter HRD Minister Arjun Singh’s proposal to hike reservations in higher educational institutes such as IITs and IIMs, some IIT alumni from the 1969 Kanpur batch plan to set up preparatory schools for students in backward areas who want to enter engineering colleges and IITs.

Paris-based Sharad Tripathi, head of IIT EU Alumni Organisation, formed barely six months ago, told The Indian Express, “Preparatory schools are a better idea than reservations. Reservations will destroy whatever credibility is left in Indian educational institutions.”

His words found an echo in Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, who became Arjun Singh’s first Cabinet colleague to openly criticize the quota formula. “Nothing should be done that will have a negative impact on India’s ability to compete in the world,’’ he said here today. And in a direct reference to Arjun’s proposal to introduce OBC quotas, Sibal said: “No policy should be taken up which will dilute the levels of excellence in our research and development and educational institutions. When the West is looking at us for excellence, we should do nothing that will work as a dampener.”

Tripathi has a solution: “With an increase in reservation quotas imminent, two weeks ago we decided to build preparatory schools in the really backward areas of India, where children can’t even take up engineering, forget about the IITs.”

He should know. Born in Nahili, a hamlet in Jalaun district, Bundelkhand, famous for its bandits, he worked his way through IIT-Kanpur, selling wood and juggling family responsibilities with his studies.

... contd.