The Supreme Court had said last month that vacant seats should go to the general category students if there are no eligible OBC quota students and this exercise should preferably be completed by October-end.

HRD Minister Arjun Singh meanwhile, said at the conference that efforts should be made to enable the minority communities to be equal partners in shaping the country’s future.

“We have to gear ourselves to deliver to the minority communities in India to enable them to become equal partners in shaping the country’s future. Unless all people in the country feel they have space to exist and flourish, the purpose of education is not served,” he said.

Singh, who once said the higher education was a sick child, on Monday said the sector had shown signs of vigour now. “It is no more a sick child. Prime Minister has been extending all help for the growth of higher education in the country.”

On the issue of filling quota seats, which occupied a whole lot of discussion space at the conference, the HRD Ministry said in a presentation that while 8,240 seats were earmarked for OBC candidates in 24 central universities (CUs), only about 5,599 seats have been filled up so far. While the highest vacancies are at Delhi University that has 2,023 of the 2,389 reserved seats lying vacant, Banaras Hindu University has 109 vacant seats, 76 in Hyderabad University 76 and and JNU 29. A few thousand reserved seats are lying vacant at CEIs taken together.

Things are better off in the technical educational institutes. Additional Secretary Ashok Thakur said only 23 seats are lying vacant in OBC category in the old IITs, while there is no vacancy in the OBC segment in IIMs. In the new IITs, which started functioning from this academic year, 66 OBC seats are lying vacant. The seats meant for Schedules Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students have been filled up in all the IITs, he said. However, in IIMs, 13.23 per cent seats have been filled by SC students against their quota of 15 per cent. Similarly 5.62 per cent seats have gone to ST students against their quota of 7.5 per cent.

“The court had said the seats should be preferably filled up by October-end as per the rules and regulations.The upper limit of creamy layer, which has been kept out of quota ambit, has been increased from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 4.5 lakh. Given all these issues, we are waiting for the direction of the court,” a senior HRD official said.