The Hindu Business Line : IIMs may have to rework selection process

Bangalore, April 10 The Supreme Court judgment upholding 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in central institutes of higher learning could reverse the entire student selection process at the six Indian Institutes of Management, perhaps even taking it back to the ‘interview’ stage.

The decision, coming just a day before the six management institutes were to declare the final list of selected students, implies that the institutes would now have to relook at the student profiles based on caste declarations, categorise them accordingly and rework the classification.

Last year, for instance, IIM Bangalore’s intake of 251 students included 22 per cent SC/ST students and three per cent persons with disability and the rest (about 190 students) belonged to general merit. This year, the intake would have to be hiked to 270 to accommodate seven per cent OBC students. This is in keeping with the decision to implement the intake in a phased manner. Next year, they would increase the OBC quota to 17 per cent and in the third year to 27 per cent, in keeping with the court ruling. “We’re doing it in a phased manner because we can take in only as much as our infrastructure and other resources allow us.”

Prof Pankaj Chandra, Director, IIMB, refused to give a time frame for completing the process saying, “We need to investigate how many students are eligible to apply under the OBC quota and whether we can complete it without going back to the interview stage.”

Related Stories:
Govt clears way for admissions in IIMs

More Stories on : Education | Courts/Legal Issues | Politics

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page