Reservation for the Rich: Remove NRI quota in admissions to higher education. Barely qualified students are getting admission

[JackSeal]

Some time back, I wrote about NRI quota in MBBS bagged by barely qualified candidates. Scathing criticism followed as it was felt that I was trying to make a larger case of a small NRI quota. This effort is to deal with the ‘Reservation for the Rich’ which is rarely questioned by raising the ‘Meritocracy; bogey.

As per the National Medical Council data, there are 284 government colleges offering 43,400 MBBS seats in India and 269 private medical colleges with 41,515 MBBS seats. The 38 Deemed-to-be universities offer 7,450 MBBS seats, almost 10 percent of total MBBS seats in the country. MBBS admission is based on common counselling. Careers360 compared the NEET 2020 closing ranks for admission in the All India Quota (AIQ) of top ranked (NIRF) medical colleges. The closing rank is the lowest rank at which admission was granted. Now look at these data points.

1. In the 2020 round of NEET counselling, the closing rank for a SC candidate at 7th ranked IMS-BHU was 45,182. This was the lowest rank among all categories. But at the 6th ranked Amrita School of Medicine, the closing NEET rank was 1,04,252 – twice as low. 

2. The 17th ranked Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi has an ST category cutoff at 2334 and SC cutoff at 1475. The 18th ranked VMMC, Delhi has an ST cutoff 10515 and SC cutoff at 2582. The 19th ranked DY Patil MC, a deemed university has a general category cutoff at 604,200. The 20th ranked SRM has a cut off of 320,355.  

3. The 31st ranked AIIMS, Bhubaneswar has an SC cutoff at 12,362 and ST Cutoff at 26,145. The 32nd ranked GMC, Kolkata has an SC cutoff at 16,086 and ST cutoff at 34,512. However, the 34th ranked Datta Meghe College has a closing rank at 617862 and the 36th ranked KIMS has 156,696 as the closing rank. 

In an ideal scenario, the student would choose a better institution. By charging high fees, many colleges are off the radar of meritorious students. These seats are Reserved for the rich which the ‘meritocracy’ bogey will never touch. Over to ‘Meritocracy’ activists to fight this too..