NEW DELHI, 17 May 2006 — As medical students’ strike against reservation quotas for admission of deprived sections to higher educational institutions entered the third day, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh told the Parliament yesterday that government was considering all options to resolve the issue.
At the same time, he asserted that the government had no intention to withdraw its reservation proposal.
“I want to assure the house and everybody that the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government and I, as a servant of this government, will see that the 93rd Amendment of the Constitution giving reservation to SCs/STs (scheduled castes/scheduled tribes) and OBCs (other backward classes) in private and unaided institutions is implemented,” Arjun said.
There is no timeframe for its implementation as the government is considering a number of suggestions, he said.
While in Delhi a hunger strike by the resident doctors of five medical colleges entered its third day, in Bihar, engineering and management students joined their counterparts from medical colleges for a rally in Patna.
In Ahmedabad, the junior doctors of three hospitals announced they would join the nationwide protests from today even as their peers in at least two other Gujarat cities participated in the strike.
In Bombay, however, a Maharashtra minister organized a pro-reservation demonstration saying quotas would benefit 80 percent of the nation.
So far the anti-quota stir has not impacted the government’s plans to reserve 27 percent of seats for other backward classes in 20 central universities, the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and AIIMS — which will take the reservation quota to 49.5 percent.
With the strike affecting services at state-run hospitals, the government is arranging alternative venues for treatment of patients left unattended, officials said.
“Beneficiaries of the central government health scheme can go to private hospitals for treatment as part of the plan drafted on the directions of Health Minister (A. Ramadoss),” a senior Health Ministry official said.
Since Friday evening, hundreds of Delhi’s resident doctors, interns and students of state-run hospitals have been protesting the proposed quotas.
Mindful of the problems faced by patients, striking resident doctors too have been running parallel outpatient department (OPD) units.
At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), they are being run under trees. At Safdarjung Hospital, they have been put up outside the main gate.
“We know that the protest is affecting the normal treatment of patients. To give them some respite we are running these parallel OPDs,” said Prashanth Inna, a resident doctor of orthopaedics at AIIMS.
