Bangalore: The Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) has in principle decided to admit other backward classes (OBC) students under the 27 percent reservation after it eceives the human resource development (HRD) ministry notification, a top official told IANS Thursday.

'We are waiting for the notification from the HRD ministry and the procedure to be adopted for admitting students under the OBC quota. After studying the notification and assessing our preparedness, we will decide when to implement. We will also talk to other B-schools (IIMs) and draw a road map as we are for social inclusive growth and we welcome the reservation for OBCs,' IIM-B director Pankaj Chandra told.

The B-school decision to admit OBC students comes in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement earlier in the day upholding the constitutional validity of the Reservation in Admission Act, 2006, in central educational institutions, including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and IIMs to the extent of 27 percent, which is in addition to the 15 percent reservation for scheduled casts and 7.5 percent for scheduled tribes.

In accordance with the apex court's order and the ministry's decision to implement the quota in a phased manner, the B-school has decided to offer admission to 19 OBC students for this academic year (2008-09), which will be seven percent of its total intake of 270 students.

'We have informed the ministry that we will be able to admit 19 OBC students, accounting for seven percent of the total seats (270) this year with our own resources,' he said.

'For the next academic year (2009-10), we plan to offer 60 seats under the OBC quota, which will be 17 percent of the total intake of 350 seats, after we receive funds from the ministry for expanding the infrastructure, including class rooms, hostels, course materials, labs and equipment,' he said.

'In the third academic year (2010-11), we will offer 99 seats for OBC students to fill the 27 percent quota out of a total intake of 370 seats, provided the support infrastructure is in commensurate with the institute's requirements,' Chandra added.

Awaiting the ministry's notification, the B-school has decided to withhold admission offer letters to the students already selected. These letters were scheduled to be dispatched Friday.

'The post-graduate programme admission offers, scheduled to be announced April 11, have been postponed. The new date will be notified soon,' Chandra said. The classes, however, will begin from mid-June.

'We will do our best to ensure the admission process for the additional intake of 19 OBC students for this year is completed by May. We have to first identify the OBC students who had appeared for CAT (common admission test)and qualified for admission within the cut-off rank,' he pointed out.

Asked about post-graduate course fee for OBC students, Chandra said it would be the same as for general category students.

'We have increased the fellowship fee to Rs.10.5 million ($263,013) from Rs.9 million from this academic year, as the fee has been revised upwards to Rs.400,000 from Rs.250,000 per annum. The fee from the next academic year will be Rs.500,000 per annum,' he said. IANS