From the current academic year 2021-22 onwards, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has decided to provide reservations for students belonging to the OBC & EWS section.27% for OBC students and 10% belonging to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) categories.
This reservation will be applied in the All-India Quota scheme for UG and PG medical/dental courses (MBBS/ MD/ MS/ Diploma/ BDS/MDS). PM Modi had earlier directed the concerned Union Ministries to find an effective solution to this long-standing issue on July 26, 2021.
Nearly 1500 OBC students in MBBS, 2500 OBC students in PG, 550 EWS students in MBBS, and around 1000 EWS students in PG courses would benefit from this decision every year.
The All India Quota (AIQ) Scheme was established in 1986 in response to Supreme Court directives. This will provide domicile-free merit-based possibilities to students. They can be from any state who aspire to study in a good medical college located in another state.
In government medical institutes, the All India Quota consists of 15% of the total available UG seats and 50% of the total available PG seats. Until 2007, there were no reservations in the AQI programme.
Under 2017, the Supreme Court approved a 15% quota for SC students and a 7.5% reservation for ST students in the AQI Scheme.
The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act went into effect in 2007. It was made mandatory that all Central Educational Institutions, including Safdarjung Hospital, Lady Harding Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, and Banaras Hindu University, provide uniform 27 percent reservation to OBCs.
A Constitutional amendment was made earlier in 2019. This provides benefits to students belonging to the EWS category in admission to higher educational institutions, allowing 10% reservation for EWS students.
As a result, seats in medical and dental colleges were raised over two years, in 2019-20 and 2020-21. To accommodate the additional 10% EWS reservation while maintaining the overall number of seats available for the unreserved category.
The number of PG seats has increased by 80% from 30,191seats in 2014 to 54,275 seats in 2020. During the same period, 179 new medical colleges have been established and now the country has 558 (Govt: 289, Pvt: 269) medical colleges, the release added.
