Students against 90% DU quota

Students and teachers at large are furious over the Delhi government’s announcement to provide 90 per cent reservation for domicile in 12 Delhi University colleges which are 100 per cent funded by it. “Since 14 years, no new college has opened in the university. The students’ strength is increasing every year but instead of considering our demand for a new college, they are coming up with the reservation formula just before the election. If this is not a political stunt, then what is it ” asked Rohit Chahal, state secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). According to AISA member Sunny Kumar, the union has been repeatedly demanding for a increase in number of colleges in Delhi University so as to enrol two lakh students who are admitted in the School of Open Learning. He added that the recent announcement further depressed the chances of students from different corner of the country who fight their way through “backwardness and deprivation” to achieve a seat in the most prestigious undergraduate university of India. In fact, a major grievance has been the disparity between the marking patterns of various state boards, which marks miserly, as compared to the CBSE and Delhi Board. Dr Aditya Narayan Misra, chairperson of Academics of Action Development(AAD), appealed to the Delhi Government and the HRD ministry to preserve the Central character of DU by not bending before any regional force which seeks to reduce it to the level of a state university.