India Education & Career

New Delhi, Apr 10 (PTI) The final list of admissions to the six prestigious Indian Institutes of Management(IIM), which was to have been released tomorrow, will be delayed by at least one week following today’s Supreme Court’s verdict on OBC quota verdict in higher education.
The IIM position came even as Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh said efforts would be made to implement the OBC quota from the coming academic year itself. The verdict in effect gives the green signal to the Centre to go ahead with the reservation policy in elite educational institutions from 2008-09.

“In one or two days, I will tell you about the progress in infrastructure activities in various institutions”, qa visibly happy Singh told reporters here.

In the case of the Indian Institutes of Technology(IIT), the assessment is that the implementation of the 27 per cent quota could be done in a “phased manner.” IIM-A director Sameer Barua told PTI in Ahmedabad “We were to release the final list of candidates tommorow. But after the Supreme Court’s order on OBC reservations, all the IIMs will have consultation and might defer the release of list by a week,” The six IIMs were to release the list of admission on the same date, he said.

Regarding the implementation of court’s order, Barua said “We would follow whatever the law of the land says” in remarks suggesting the IIMs would adhere to the government’s policy.

“Awaiting official notification of the Human Resources Development Ministry, we have decided to defer the release of the list,” IIM-C Director Shekhar Chaudhuri said. Once such a notification is received, Chaudhuri said “we will decide on the operational details as to how to select OBC candidates.” The Congress and the Left parties are pressing for the implementation of OBC quotas in the coming year itself.