mumbai

Updated: Mar 29, 2019 23:29 IST

With no provision for socially and economically backward castes (SEBC) in the national and management quota, the state government has decided to reserve 16% seats from their kitty for the Maratha community. This means, open category students will have only 4% seats.

Maharashtra has around 1,400 medical seats in the state quota.

The state’s share of seats, except for deemed-to-be-universities, in medical colleges is 50%.

The remaining 50% all-India quota (AIQ) seats are filled by the Centre’s Directorate General of Health Services, while in private colleges, 35% seats are filled by the institutes and 15% seats are reserved for non-resident Indian (NRI) candidates.

Until now, 25% seats in medical colleges were available for general category students applying in the state, as 50% seats belonged to either AIQ or institution and NRI quota and 25% seats were reserved for scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribes (ST), vimukta jatis (VJ), nomadic tribes (NT), other backward categories (OBC) and special backward category (SBC)

students.

With the addition of 16% SEBC quota, and 5% for the economically weaker section (EWS), only 4% seats will remain for general category students. The state also sets aside seats for orphans, persons with disability and in-service candidates, which could further shrink the number of seats in the general category.

The state common entrance test (CET) cell had decided to reserve 16% of mere state-quota seats for SEBC in government colleges, which effectively brought the Maratha quota to 8% of the total intake as half the government seats are with the Centre. The quota stayed 16% in private colleges, as they have no AIQ.

However, the government has now decided that there should be a uniform 16% Maratha quota in all the institutes.

“The admission regulating authority (ARA) had sought government’s opinion in implementing SEBC reservation in PG medical and dental courses. After consulting the law and judiciary department, the medical education and research department directed that the Maratha quota be calculated by considering the entire intake of colleges, and not just the state-quota seats,” said Anand Rayate, commissioner, state CET cell.

The PG medical courses are the first to be affected by the newly introduced 16% SEBC reservation of the state government and 10% economically weaker section (EWS) reservation of the Centre.

A group of candidates from the state have already challenged the two quotas in Bombay High Court (HC) and Supreme Court (SC), respectively.

“We feel cheated as the rules of admissions were changed later,” said Shreyasi Tendolkar, one of the candidates.