NEW DELHI: The Union Human Resource Development Ministry has expressed concern that any further delay in passing the draft legislation to give effect to the 93rd Constitution Amendment providing reservation in private educational institutions will defeat its very purpose of ensuring quotas for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in such institutions.

In a note prepared to elucidate the fallout of the delay in bringing in the enabling legislation, the Ministry said all private educational institutions would be free from any responsibility for reservation or from any regulation of fees. Also, as per a "conservative back-of-the-envelope-calculation" of the Ministry, private institutions would gain Rs. 835 crore as they are empowered to fill all the seats without any quota for weaker sections or without fee regulation.

`Windfall profits'

The note says the gain by the private educational institutions would give rise to "a suspicion in the public mind that the delay in policy formulation itself was engineered to permit the private institutions making windfall profits at least for one academic year."

With the 2006-07 academic year already lost, the Ministry has said: "The private operators have almost succeeded in thwarting the consequences of a constitutional amendment for one year." The note comes with a detailed annexure providing a "conservative estimate" of the implications of reservation of seats for weaker sections in private unaided educational institutions.

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