20 years wait! The promise of OBC, SC, ST reservation in private colleges is unfulfilled, know why students are not getting their full rights.

New Delhi: Every year, crores of students in the country work day and night to get a government seat in difficult examinations like JEE and NEET. But do you know that almost 20 years ago, in January 2006, a historic change was made in the Indian Constitution, which, if fully implemented, would have been a different picture today? This was a change in the constitution Article 15(5) KA, which had opened the way for implementation of quota for reserved categories (OBC, SC, ST) in private engineering, medical and management colleges also. But even after two decades, this promise remains unfulfilled and lakhs of students are waiting for their constitutional rights.

What is the forgotten Article 15(5) of the Constitution?

In January 2006, the Indian Parliament passed the 93rd Constitutional Amendment. Under this, a new clause (5) was added to Article 15 of the Constitution. This section empowered the Central and State Governments to make special provisions for reservation in private educational institutions (except minority institutions) for the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). This simply meant- Making 27% reservation for OBC, 15% for SC and 7.5% for ST mandatory in private colleges.

Where did the wheel of reservation get stuck?

This law has been implemented in central educational institutions like IIT, IIM and AIIMS. In the medical field, students also got benefit to some extent through NEET. But where the real revolution was to come, i.e. in the private sector of the country, it never reached there. Today, more than 70% of the students in India are studying in private colleges, but this constitutional provision of reservation is practically nil there. In 2014, the Supreme Court also validated this law, but despite this the ground reality did not change.

The main reasons for this are clear:

1. Lack of legal framework: Constitutional amendments only give governments the power to make laws, not enforce them. To make reservation mandatory, an explicit bill was required to be passed by the Parliament or state legislatures. In the last 20 years, the Central Government has not made any such comprehensive law which applies to all private institutions.
2. Half-hearted efforts of the states: Some states like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra tried to implement it on their own, but due to the absence of a national law, its impact was limited.
3. Lack of political will: The issue of reservation has always been a subject of sensitive political debate, due to which there has been hesitation in implementing it completely.

What will be the benefit from its implementation?

Today, crores of students compete for a few thousand government seats in JEE and NEET because the fees of private colleges are very expensive. If Article 15(5) is implemented in its true sense then:

• Lakhs of reserved seats will be available in private colleges, giving students more options.
• There will be less pressure on government colleges and cut-offs will come down.
• Deserving students from reserved category will also get equal opportunities for good education, even if their rank is slightly lower.
• This will help in achieving the goal of social equality in the field of education.

Even today the question remains that what will be the future of these students who have been waiting for their rights for 20 years? This constitutional weapon of bringing equality through education has remained limited to paper only without any concrete legal framework. Now the time has come for the government to take some strong action on this.