Reservation in Junior Colleges in AP

The Andhra Pradesh Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) has made it mandatory for all intermediate colleges in the State to adhere to reservations in admission for intermediate colleges. According to V Ramakrishna, Secretary BIE, stringent action would be taken against college authorities that don’t follow these norms. Category-wise, 15 per cent seats must be allotted for Scheduled Caste students, 6 per cent for Scheduled Tribe students, 29 per cent for the backward classes, 3 per cent each for physically challenged and ex-servicemen background students and 5 per cent for NCC, sports and extracurricular activities. Besides these, 33.3 per cent of the total seats should also be reserved for girl students category-wise where there are no separate colleges for them. According to Ramakrishna, affirmative action or reservations in intermediate colleges is not new but nobody cared to implement them all these decades. Students were unaware of eligibility for reservations as colleges did not adhere to existing norms.