MUMBAI: As reservation for backward category students rises in the Indian Institutes of Technology, competition among them has also stepped up.In fact, of the 3.95 lakh applications that the IITs received from aspirants wanting to take the Joint Entrance Exam in April, close to 40% candidates - 1.55 lakh - belong to the reserved categories.
In 2007, a year before the IITs implemented the first phase of the 9% reservation for the Other Backward Caste category, 45,000 OBC students had applied to take the JEE. This year, more than 98,000 OBC candidates - 26% of all aspirants - will take the JEE.
Bhaba Sarma, JEE chairman at IIT-Guwahati, which is the organising institute for this year's exam, said, "About 75% of the OBC applicants belong to the non-creamy layers. But this is preliminary data. We are yet to go through 16,000 more applications received online.'' This year, the seven old IITs will set aside 18% seats for OBC candidates, and the eight new ones will have 27% reservation for them.
IIT sources said the number of OBC applicants has gone up dramatically with the government raising the income ceiling for non-creamy candidates from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 4.5 lakh.
Former director of IIT-Madras P V Indiresan felt that reservation was the sole reason for OBC applications going up. He said, "I can't think of any other reason why so many candidates would apply.'' Echoing his thoughts was IIT-Guwahati director Gautam Barua, who said that students across the country were now aware that a reservation policy was in place. "An OBC student who scored 80% or 85% will psychologically feel that he has a better chance to get into the IITs now that there's reservation.'' With so many OBC applicants, the IITs may be able to fill all the seats reserved in that category, he added.
The stakes in this exam are going to be high for OBC students as well as those from the general category. Close to 90,000 OBC students from the non-creamy layer will compete for 1,245 seats (72 aspirants to a seat). And close to 2.3 lakh general category candidates will vie for 3,728 spots (62 hopefuls per seat).
Last year, 1,134 OBC candidates qualified for admission at the 13 IITs. The tech schools did not have to lower the entry bar to fill seats reserved for OBC candidates. However, fearing that SC and ST seats may remain unfilled, IIT directors are allowing a 50% relaxation of scores in these categories from 2009, up from 40%.
A faculty member from IIT-Bombay pointed out that the number of ST applicants has always been low. "Forms are available to them at half-price, but few ST candidates feel they have the academic capability to get into the IITs. However, when we conduct the preparatory course for some of these students, we find some really bright ones amongst them. Most of them really just have a problem in communicating in English,'' he added.
In the 2008 JEE, if the last general category student was admitted with an overall score of 172 out of 489, the aggregate cut-off for an SC/ST student was 104 (after a 40% relaxation). If the general category cut-off remains the same this year, the bar for SC/ST candidates will be lowered to 86 (50% of 172). Subject-wise cut-offs would be similarly affected.
For JEE 2009, the percentage of SC and ST candidates has gone up only marginally. More than 35,000 SC candidates have applied for 890 seats reserved for them at 15 IITs. And over 12,000 ST students will battle it out for 434 spots.
Like last year, the number of students planning to take the JEE has risen by over 30%. The Mumbai zone has the highest number of applicants, followed by Chennai, Kharagpur and Delhi.
