Government to continue tribal quota in NIT-Agartala

The central government has decided to continue reservation of seats for tribal and other backward community students in the National Institute of Technology (NIT) here after a high court ruling slashed the quota system for the institute, a state minister said Thursday.

The decision was taken at a meeting in New Delhi Wednesday between union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal and Tripura's Higher Education Minister Anil Sarkar.

"The minister has agreed to notify 27 percent seats for the other backward community (OBC), 15 percent for the Scheduled Castes and 7.5 percent for Scheduled Tribes students in NIT-Agartala," Sarkar told IANS by phone from New Delhi.

The union minister has also assured to lower the cut-off marks for admission of students from Tripura.

The reservation and cut-off-marks controversy cropped up last month following the Guwahati High Court's order cancelling reservation and the Central Counselling Board's (CCB) decision to follow a new system for admission in the NITs across the country.

"A division bench of the Guwahati High Court comprising Justices B.D. Agarwal and Maibam B.K. Singh last month directed that no reservation shall be applicable in NIT-Agartala as the institute is located in the Sixth Schedule area of the constitution," Sarkar said.

The high court also ordered that the dispute over reservation could only be settled if the union HRD ministry issued a notification.

"If the latest decisions of the high court and the CCB were introduced, the students of Tripura would be deprived and it would cause a regional imbalances in higher education," Sarkar said.

NITs are premier colleges of engineering and technology education in India. They were originally called Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs). In 2002, the HRD ministry decided to upgrade, in phases, all the original 17 RECs as NITs. There are currently 20 NITs, the latest one being in Agartala.

Last updated on Jun 25^th, 2009 at 15:08 pm IST--IANS