By contrast, in states like Uttar Pradesh, which implemented OBC reservations only in the ’80s, the enrolment rates and performance indices of OBC students in engineering and medical entrance exams are lower than those for General category students.

Incomes strongly determine the attainment of higher education within the reserved categories. About 70 per cent of the graduates from Hindu OBCs are from economically better-off backgrounds (the two upper-most quintiles), as per the monthly per capita expenditure data from the National Sample Survey in 2005-06. (For comparison, at the national level, only 7 per cent of all graduates are from poorer income backgrounds; the majority, 55 per cent to be exact, from the richest income groups.) For the IITs, factors such as schooling under a Central board, access to test coaching, living in urban areas, having parents in government service, and having parents with an income of at least Rs 1-2 lakh per annum were major enablers among successful OBC, ST and SC candidates. These numbers are consonant with the possibility that a second or third generation are benefiting from reservations, rather than the first-generation learners within the poorer communities.

Nevertheless, the share of OBC students among all students who passed the IIT-JEE has remained much lower than their official quota shares. Among the students who passed the JEE in the year 2007, only 12 per cent were OBCs; the shares of SC and ST students were 7.6 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively. Thus, there is continued under-representation of reserved category students, especially SC/ ST, in the IITs.

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