Amitav Ranjan & Ravish Tiwari

New Delhi, March 26: Despite opposition by Finance Minister P Chidambaram and a Supreme Court stay on more quota in higher education institutions, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh wants the Cabinet to release Rs 867 crore at the fag end of the fiscal year.

With three days left for the fiscal year to come to a close, Arjun Singh has insisted that the money be released in the current financial year so that IITs and medical institutes can be expanded as promised in the 2007-08 Budget.

This is despite a “strong rebuttal” by the Finance Ministry which said that it did not have money to spare during the current fiscal ending March 31. It also said that any approval would violate the fiscal prudence norms (to rein in expenditure) that were circulated to all ministries last November.

The Finance Ministry had objected to the delay in HRD’s submission of the proposal even though the proposal to build the infrastructure ahead of the court’s permission was approved ‘in principle’ by the Expenditure Finance Committee, said sources.

The Budget estimates for 2007-08 had provided for Rs 980 crore to expand the infrastructure, but Singh’s ministry sat over it till the penultimate days, they said.

On these grounds, the Finance Ministry — with the approval of Chidambaram — said that the proposal be deferred for the next fiscal. But Singh, sources said, impressed on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to include it for tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting so that infrastructure in higher educational institutions will be ready if and when the court vacates its stay.

The government’s hurry to woo OBC votes is evident from the inclusion of the proposal for tomorrow’s meeting despite the absence of Chidambaram who is away to Singapore.

Singh’s proposal to provide 27 per cent reservation for students belonging to OBCs was to be carried out by expanding the infrastructure in higher institutes to provide for extra seats over and above that for the general category.

The idea was to increase the intake of students to ensure that the seat for general category students was maintained at 2006-07 level. However, with the matter pending with the Supreme Court, the government’s expansion plans hit a roadblock.

Until that happens, Singh plans to make up for lost time and claim the credit for OBC reservation in the year that has seen more election promises.

editor@expressindia.com