HC stalls hike in management quota seats

The court stayed the increase in management quota seats on a writ petition filed by Parents’ Association for (Medical, Dental and Paramedical) Colleges questioning the rationale behind it in professional courses this year. The court also made it clear that the government order on increase in management quota seats in private colleges would not be effected from this year.

The association members have alleged that the move is motivated at helping the NRI and Management quota students.

The Association has pointed out that last year a number of seats had remained vacant in medical, pharmacy, and also engineering courses.

Earlier the colleges have asked the fee regulating committee to increase management quota seats from the current 25 per cent to 30 per cent from the academic year (2009-10).

Interestingly, the government is considering an increase in the management quota seats in order to reduce burden on the state exchequer in terms of fee reimbursements for students from the convener quota.

According to the present plan, students whose parental income is less than Rs 1 lakh per annum are entitled to reimbursement of the convener quota fee from the department of higher education. The state is also planning to extend this to students who are from economically backward classes. With this, 70 per cent of students would be eligible for fee reimbursement.