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.

But getting into an IIT, says Tripathi, is now “much more competitive than in the Sixties”. Students from urban areas, he points out, spend thousands of rupees preparing for IIT entrance exams, something which backward area students can’t do.

“Even if you put a backward caste person into IIT, he needs to have years of education before—how does he become backward then? The challenge is to uplift the economically backward, irrespective of their caste,” he says.

Tripathi and his batchmates are pooling in $10,000 each and hope that “if the momentum picks up” among IIT’s global alumni, they would be able to collect a couple of million dollars within months.

One alumnus is already running a similar preparatory school for engineering aspirants in Rai Bareli. Pawan Kumar, chairman of IIT-Kanpur Alumni Association, Delhi-based Dilip Williams, Suman Sarin in the Middle-East and some others across the globe are championing the cause.

While some alumni are proposing that the prep schools be set up within IIT campuses in the country, Tripathi believes that would defeat the purpose. “Aspirants in backward areas won’t be able to leave their villages and spend so much money staying outside, especially when they have to keep the home fires burning as well,” he says.