Home Minister Amit Shah welcomed the decision to provide reservation for OBC category for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in medical education saying it is a historic decision.
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Centre decided to provide 27 per cent reservation for OBC category and 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections in All India Quota Scheme in undergraduate and postgraduates in the medical education.
The AIQ scheme consists of 15% of total available undergraduate seats and 50% of total available postgraduate seats in government medical colleges.
There was no reservation in the AIQ scheme till 2007. Subsequently, the Supreme Court introduced reservations of 15% for Scheduled Castes and 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes in the AIQ scheme.
To reserve seats for students belonging to the EWS category, a constitutional amendment was made in 2019, enabling the provision of 10% reservation.
Accordingly, seats in medical and dental colleges were increased over two years in 2019-20 and 2020-21 to accommodate more students so that the total number of seats available for the unreserved category do not reduce.