New Delhi, July 3: In order to implement the 27 per cent OBC reservation while keeping the existing number of general category seats intact, as many as 42,000 seats will have to be added over the next three years in the 12 central universities, resulting in an increase of as many as 1.18 lakh students.

To start with, these universities will have to expand intake capacity by 14,000 seats in 2008-09. The figures came to the fore with the empowered committee set up by the Human Resource Development Ministry on Thursday clearing the Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) of all central universities.

The committee headed by UGC Chairman Sukhdeo Thorat cleared the stepping- up of the allocation of the central universities from Rs 3297.71 crore to Rs 4306.44 crore.

The committee also approved the phasing out plan to implement the OBC reservation within three years, starting from the academic session 2008-2009. To facilitate the same, the Cabinet on Thursday also gave its approval for an amendment in the Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Admissions) Amendment Bill, 2008.

While originally it was planned that the 27 per cent OBC reservation would roll out starting from the 2007-08 academic session, the implementation was delayed by nearly a year. The amended Bill will provide for the quota rollout to start from this academic session and to be completed over the next three years by the 2010-11 session.

While most of the central universities have proposed to implement 9% OBC reservation every year, there are a few universities which have proposed to implement OBC reservation in two years or one year. The phasing out plan as proposed by the universities and approved by the empowered committee has been apprised to the Commission in its meeting held on 18th-19th June, 2008.