by Moiz Mannan
Tightening of norms by state governments and by various bodies governing higher and professional education and a plethora of litigation in the matter has led to a great amount of confusion for non-resident Indians (NRI) planning to get their children admitted to institutions back home.
According to the Income Tax Act of 1951, an NRI is a person who has not been living in India for nine out of the previous 10 years or who has not been in India for a period of 730 days or more during the preceding seven years. Until a few years back, there would be a rush for the 15 percent additional seats in engineering, medical, pharmacy, management and other professional courses set aside for children of NRIs.
Last year, several states slashed the quota from 15 to just five percent following either government or court directions. It may be recalled that some two years back Last march, hearing a petition pertaining to NRI quotas in medical seats in government colleges, the Supreme Court questioned the rationale of government colleges having a separate quota for NRI students. Hearing a case, a two-judge bench of the apex court had, in fact, questioned, “Why should government colleges have an NRI quota?”.
While there is some amount of transparency and clarity in the admissions to the government colleges, there seems to a virtual free-for-all when it comes to the private institutions.
Earlier this month, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had to issue a direction to the state’s Medical Education and Research Department to ensure filling of vacant NRI quota for MBBS and BDS seats in all medical and dental colleges in the state.
The government wanted the seats to be filled on the basis of Pre-Medical Entrance Test (PMET) merit under the guidelines issued by Medical Council of India (MCI) and Dental Council of India (DCI) in a transparent manner. According to reports from Chandigarh, hundreds of MBBS and BDS seats under the NRI quota were lying vacant in various medical and dental colleges across the state. As against this, just about 15 or so NRI applications had been received.
In fact, Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot hadset up helpline numbers and the government also publicised the telephone numbers of the Medical Education and Research office to enable students and parents to get clear and authentic information.
Before that, the Hindustan Times had exposed how private medical colleges were literally selling off the vacant NRI seats for prices as high as Rs. 5m. The government notification in this regard has officially allowed a premium of just Rs. 400,000 for an MBBS seat and Rs. 150,000 for a BDS seat.
In Odisha, private engineering colleges were reported trying to fill up 15 percent of the seats under the state’s joint entrance examinations that were sub judice, even after the completion of the admission process by allegedly terming them as ‘management seats’.
According to regulations, only five percent of the total seats fall under the NRI quota. The private engineering colleges had collectively approached the High Court (HC) to increase the NRI quota seats from five to 15 percent. There was a provision that allowed vacant NRI seats to be converted to the general category. But now no admissions can take place in these 15 percent seats under OJEE owing to the pending case in the HC.
Reports from Bhuvaneshwar said none of the engineering colleges was mentioning the NRI quota anymore. Government officials were quoted as saying that most of the colleges were now refering to these 15 percent seats as ‘management seats’ whereas no such term existed. The colleges showed that no application had been received for the NRI seats.
There were reports from Mumbai that some leading private institutions offering professional courses across the state of Maharashtra were being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for possible violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema).
Here again, the suspicion is that the private colleges were accepting donations and admitting general category students against the NRI quota. Officials were said to be investigating the credentials and genuineness of all students admitted in the NRI quotas. With 155 engineering colleges, 126 B-schools, and about 74 medical, dental and pharmacy institutes, Maharashtra has a provision for ‘institution level’ (management quota) seats in professional courses, but some of the colleges being investigated have said that they do not even have a sanctioned NRI quota which is 15 percent over and above the sanctioned intake.
Further down south, engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh have reported no takers for NRI seats. Reports from Hyderabad suggest that tightening of regulations for NRI seats by the state government has resulted in the private institutions virtually giving up on this lucrative segment.
The Andhra government had recently slashed the NRI quota from 15 to 5 percent of seats. It made the norms stricter, stating that only those NRI students whose parents resided abroad should be offered seats. Now, the managements feel that it would be difficult to fill even 5 percent NRI seats this year. The 15 percent NRI quota was part of the 30 percent management quota in engineering colleges. With the government reducing the NRI quota to 5 percent, the colleges will now have to fill 25 percent seats under the management quota. The Peninsula
