Landmark decision taken by Government of India in Medical Education

Source: PIB

What is the News?

The Central Government has announced that it will provide 27% reservation for OBCs and 10% reservation for the economically weaker section(EWS). It will be provided under the All India Quota (AIQ) scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical/dental courses in state medical and dental colleges from 2021-22.

About All India Quota(AIQ) Scheme:

• The All India Quota (AIQ) Scheme was introduced in 1986 under the direction of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.
• Purpose: It provides for domicile-free merit-based opportunities to students from any State to aspire to study in a good medical college located in another State.
• All India Quota consisted of 15% of total available UG seats and 50% of total available PG seats in government medical colleges.
• Initially, there was no reservation in the AIQ Scheme up to 2007. In 2007, the Supreme Court introduced a reservation of 15% for SCs and 7.5% for STs in the AIQ Scheme.
• Moreover, when the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act became effective in 2007 providing for uniform 27% reservation to OBCs, the same was implemented in all the Central Educational Institutions.
• However, this was not extended to the AIQ seats of State medical and dental colleges. This has been done now.

Significance of this decision:

• OBC and EWS students from across the country will now be able to take advantage of this reservation in the AIQ scheme to compete for seats in any state.
• Moreover, being a central scheme, the central list of OBCs shall be used for this reservation.

Note:

• This decision is in sync with the reforms carried out in the field of medical education since 2014.
• In the six years to 2020, MBBS seats in the country have increased by 56% to 84,649 and the number of postgraduate seats has increased by 80% to 54,275 seats.
• During the same period, 179 new medical colleges have been established, for a total of 558 medical colleges (269 of them are run by private operators).