Ahead of the crucial panchayat polls in the state,the Trinamool Congress government on Wednesday unveiled a slew of schemes,among them its plan to increase the quota of seats for the Scheduled Castes,Schedules Tribes and Other Backward Class in higher education. A Bill to this effect will be introduced in the coming Budget session of the Assembly. This was announced by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday. The West Bengal State Higher Education Reservation in Admission Bill,said the Chief Minister,will,however,not reduce the number of seats for the General Category students while implementing the reservation. For this,additional infrastructure will be created to absorb the extra students under the quota,she added. The cost for creating the additional infrastructure will be Rs 1,000 crore,of which Rs 600 crore will be spent annually,she said. The Bill slated to be placed in this Assembly will provision for reservation of 45 per cent of seats in addition to the existing seats in colleges and universities for SCs,STs and OBCs. This will be in addition to the seats,which are meant for general caste. Till now in higher education,there was a reservation of 22 per cent seats in colleges and universities for SCs,6 per cent for STs and 2 per cent for physically-handicapped students. Therefore,30 per cent of the total seats,earlier,were for reserved categories. But under the new Bill,general caste seats will be intact while additional capacities will have to be created for reserved categories,including 17 per cent for OBCs. The reservation of physically-handicapped is not mentioned in the Bill. The reservation for OBCs will include minority Muslims,too,who had recently been included in the OBC list.
