In a landmark decision the union government has decided to give 27% reservation to other backward class (OBC) category and 10% reservation to economically weaker section (EWS) in medical education.

This reservation policy would be implemented in the All India Quota (AIQ) Scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical / dental courses (MBBS / MD / MS / Diploma / BDS / MDS) from the current academic year 2021-22 onwards.

Nearly 5,500 students are estimated to be benefitted from this decision. “This decision would benefit every year nearly 1500 OBC students in MBBS and 2500 OBC students in postgraduation and also around 550 EWS students in MBBS and around 1000 EWS students in postgraduation,” an official statement said.

“Our Government has taken a landmark decision for providing 27% reservation for OBCs and 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Section in the All India Quota Scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical/dental courses from the current academic year,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tweeted.

Under the All India Quota scheme domicile-free merit based opportunities are provided to students from any State to aspire to study in a good medical college located in another State. All India Quota consists of 15% of total available UG seats and 50% of total available PG seats in government medical colleges.

In 2007, reservation was implemented in the all India quota seats in which 15% seats were reserved for SC category and 7.5% for ST category.

When the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act became effective in 2007 providing for uniform 27% reservation to OBCs, the same was implemented in all the Central Educational Institutions like Safdarjung Hospital, Lady Harding Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University and Banaras Hindu University etc. However, this was not extended to the all India quota seats of State medical and dental colleges.

Likewise, after the 10% EWS quota was implemented in 2019, seats in medical / dental colleges were increased over two years in 2019-20 and 2020-21 to accommodate this additional 10% EWS reservation so that the total number of seats available for unreserved category do not reduce. In the all India quota seats, however, this benefit had not been extended so far.