IITs And IIMs To Seek Exemption From 10 Per Cent Quota For Next Session, Cite Infrastructure, Already Conducted Exams

The Indian Institutes of Technology and Management are likely to seek exemption from the 10 per cent quota for the upcoming academic session. The tech schools cited inadequate infrastructure while the management ones cited the absence of an “economically weaker section” box on the CAT application form.

Earlier, the Human Resource and Development (HRD) ministry had demanded that all the central educational institutions should start implementing the 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker section (EWS) from the 2019-20 session along with an increment in their seats in order to accommodate it.

However, an IIT director said that their campuses are residential and increasing seats would mean a corresponding increase in hostel seats, which is difficult to do at short notice.

“The ministry order does not say that the number of unreserved seats cannot be reduced. If the unreserved seats can be reduced, there’s no need to increase seats — (some of) the existing unreserved seats can be diverted for the quota,” said an IIT director as reported by Telegraph India.

Furthermore, two IIM professors have claimed that the implementation of the ‘economically weaker’ quota is next to impossible in the upcoming session as the Common Admission Test (CAT) was conducted without any mention of the economic quota.