West Bengal to reserve college, varsity seats for OBCs

KOLKATA - The West Bengal government has decided to reserve seats for students from other backward classes (OBC) in colleges and universities from the next academic session, Higher Education Minister Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury told the state assembly Monday.

“The government has in principle agreed to introduce seat reservation for the students belonging to other backward classes in government and government-aided higher educational institutions,” he said while replying to a calling attention motion.

Since reservation for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students already exists in higher educational institutions in the state, the government has now decided to introduce reservation for OBCs, he said.

Later, talking to reporters , Roy Chowdhury, however, said since medical and engineering colleges were not under the purview of the higher education department, he would not be able to say whether the proposed OBC quota would be applicable to those institutions as well.

However, Leader of Opposition Partha Chatterjee said the decision smacked of a “political gimmick”.

“The state government has already announced introduction of 10 percent reservation in government jobs for Muslims under the OBC category. But, it is yet to take any concrete step on it. The state government is trying to dilute an important issue,” he said.

Chatterjee also said the state government is trying to lure the people belonging to the minority community and other backward classes by announcing such schemes after suffering a series of setbacks in recent polls.