New Delhi, March 05: After dropping its plan to set up of a Central Madrasa Board (CMB) because of lack of consensus on the issue, the HRD Ministry is now set to exempt Jamia Milia University from implementing the 27 per cent OBC quota it has strongly been advocating.
The ministry is likely to amend the Central Educational Institutes (Amendment) Act to exempt Jamia from the quota rollout mandated by the Act, sources said.
The 27 per cent OBC quota plan was rolled out by former HRD Minister Arjun Singh and all central educational institutes, including IITs and IIMs, have had to implement it in a phased manner from 2008 to 2010.
Jamia Milia Islamia – also a central university – is by this Act also mandated to implement the OBC quota, but has been dragging its feet on the issue. The HRD Ministry has now decided to amend the Act to make an exception for Jamia Milia.
Incidentally, the Cabinet had last year approved amendments to the Act to exempt some central educational institutes in Northeast in view of higher SC/ST population than OBC population in the area.
There have been several arguments made in favour of making Jamia Milia Islamia a minority university but the issue is still pending with the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutes.
—-Agencies