The Hindu : Front Page : Major amendments to Bill on the anvil

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Friday, Jun 30, 2006

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Major amendments to Bill on the anvil

Special Correspondent

15 per cent quota of privileged seats for self-financing college managements

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Education Minister M.A. Baby is slated to move a number of official amendments to the Kerala Professional Colleges Bill in the Assembly late Thursday night, including the one seeking to introduce a 15 per cent quota of privileged seats for all self-financing college managements.

The Assembly began consideration of the Bill, reported by the Subject Committee, on Thursday evening after Speaker K. Radhakrishnan rejected a series of objections raised by the Opposition against introduction of the Bill.

The Opposition complained that the Minister was about to propose drastic changes to the Bill, including changes in the preamble of the Bill, after the report stage. The provisions of the Bill would not stand legal scrutiny. The Minister clarified that the Bill was drafted after paying due attention to Constitutional provisions and court verdicts on self-financing colleges. The Speaker rejected the objections raised by V.D. Satheesan, M. Murali, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan (all of the Congress) in view of the Minister's clarification.

Other clauses

The official amendments include a new clause defining factors for according minority status to unaided professional colleges or institutions.

The amendment says that the population of the linguistic or religious minority community in the State which runs the professional college or institution shall be less than 50 per cent of the total population of the State.

Besides, the number of colleges or institutions run by the minority community shall be proportionately lesser than the number of professional colleges or institutions run by the non-minority community in the State.

The number of students belonging to the minority community undergoing professional education in all professional colleges or institutions in the State shall be proportionately lesser than the number of students belonging to the non-minority community undergoing professional education in all professional colleges or institutions in the State.

Other amendments specify that the privilege seats shall be filled through the single window system from the common merit list prepared by the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE) on the basis of interse merit from applications submitted by the management [CEE] of each unaided professional college.

General quota

The quota available under general merit in non-minority colleges as per this amendment will be 20 per cent. The provisions of 50 per cent reservation for various backward sections and the disabled remain, besides the 15 per cent Non-Resident Indian quota.

In the case of minority colleges, 50 per cent of the total seats would be community quota, half of which is to be filled up from socially and economically backward sections from within the minority community on merit-cum-means basis and the rest in the order of merit. The minority institution may surrender up to 20 per cent of the total seats to be filled by the CEE.

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