April 10: Cramped classrooms, makeshift accommodation and faculty shortage may greet students entering India’s top higher education institutions this year, if the Centre orders implementation of OBC quotas this academic session.

The Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management, and central universities find themselves conjoined in a desperate race against time to accommodate more students than their infrastructure can take.

Although more than a third of this year’s budgetary allocation in higher education is earmarked for the implementation of OBC quotas, no funds have reached any institution yet.

While many of the IITs, IIMs and central universities have started building additional classrooms and hostel facilities in anticipation of the quotas, officials at many institutions conceded that their infrastructure was not yet ready.

Asked if the institute could handle a projected 18 per cent increase in seats this year, the IIT Delhi dean, Anurag Sharma, said: “If the order comes from the government, we won’t have a choice.”

A new hostel block, and a set of lecture theatres are expected to be ready by 2009. Till then, students may be housed in vacant rooms in a block of apartments meant for married researchers.

The IITs in Mumbai, Guwahati and Roorkee face the maximum shortage in hostel space.

Calcutta situation

Among the IIMs, Calcutta appears better placed than the rest. The IIM plans to increase its student intake this year only by 6 per cent, out of a total of 54 percent spread over three years. The only IIM that has vacant hostel space at the moment, Calcutta officials said they expected “no problem in implementing the quotas”.

“We are confident that we can manage an increase in seats this year, if asked to do so,” Subrata Mitra, said chairman, admissions, IIM Calcutta.

“We are prepared for implementing the first phase of the seat increase as infrastructure expansion plans, including new classrooms and hostel facilities, are already ongoing,” said Shekhar Chaudhuri, director, IIM Calcutta.

A big hostel complex is expected to be ready by 2009-end to accommodate the increase in students over the next two years.

The IITs had unanimously agreed to splitting the total increase of 54 per cent equally over three years — 18 per cent each year. The IIMs each had a different plan.

Given a choice, IIT Kharagpur would like to increase seats by 9 per cent followed by 18s per cent and 27 per cent in the next two years, despite the original plan.

“It will be difficult for us to implement the increase at one go, though we will have to gear up for it if the directive comes in,” said D. Gunasekaran, registrar, IIT Kharagpur.