February 8, 2007 ☼ Public Policy
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
In May 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met medical students then on a strike against his government’s flagrant assault on equality.
Dr Singh had an hour-long meeting with the medicos during which he told them that he foresees a massive expansion of the higher education system which would see a huge growth in the educational opportunities available to all classes and categories of students. [Rediff]
Cautioning those agitating against the government’s reservations policy not to be taken in by false promises and faulty logic (even if it came from a man of ‘integrity’) this blog wrote:
If university students were toddlers and the kept prime minister was a purple dinosaur then his story of a future without scarcity would have been believable…There is no evidence that the UPA government, pressed as it is by spending commitments, has the capability to even find the additional financial resources required to fund the massive expansion in the intake of higher-educational institutions. [If all the snow flakes were candy-bars and milkshakes]
And now the Indian Express reports that the UPA has hit the budget constraint.
In the first reality check on UPA plans to implement 27 per cent OBC quota over three years through 54 per cent expansion of the higher education sector, allocation for expansion in the first year may not be more than Rs 1,555 crore. The Human Resource Development Ministry had sought nearly Rs 2,700 crore in the first year to push plans for both OBC quota and general category seats. [IE]
That’s not all. Because the law requires that the number of unreserved seats is not reduced, expansion has to of be a certain minimum size, or not at all. And if it can’t find the funds, both expansion and reservations will have to wait.
But…a quota-less increase in the number of seats will make reservations unnecessary in practice, and hence contribute towards the improvement of social equality that everyone wants.[If all the snowflakes…]
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