New Delhi: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has taken a landmark decision for providing 27 per cent reservation for OBCs and 10 per cent for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in the All India Quota (AIQ) Scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical/dental courses (MBBS / MD / MS / Diploma / BDS / MDS) from the current academic year 2021-22.
The decision will benefit nearly 1500 OBC students in MBBS and 2500 OBC students in postgraduation and also around 550 EWS students in MBBS and around 1000 EWS students in postgraduation every year, said an official statement.
The AIQ scheme was introduced in 1986 under the directions of the Supreme Court to provide for domicile-free merit-based opportunities to students from any State to aspire to study in a good medical college located in another state. AIQ consists of 15 per cent of the total available UG seats and 50 per cent of total available PG seats in government medical colleges. Initially, there was no reservation in AIQ scheme up to 2007. In 2007, SC introduced reservation of 15 per cent for SCs and 7.5 per cent for STs. When the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act became effective in 2007 providing for uniform 27 per cent reservation to OBCs, it was implemented in all the Central Educational Institutions like Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital and Lady Harding Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, and Banaras Hindu University, etc. However, this was not extended to the AIQ seats of state medical and dental colleges.
Comments are closed.