No OBC quota in Navodaya schools an anomaly,will be rectified:

Union Minister of State for HRD Upendra Kushwaha today said it was an "anomaly" that there was no quota for students belonging to OBC in his ministry-run Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and that he believed it would be corrected in the near future.
He said that he felt it was not proper that reservation provisions regarding the Other Backward Class (OBC) were not applied in nearly 600 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs).
"The attention of the ministry, our (HRD) minister, all of us has moved towards this direction and I believe that this anomaly would be corrected in the near future," Kushwaha said at the National Cultural Integration Meet where HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar was also present.

Kushwaha leads the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, which is an NDA constituent at the Centre, and his comments comes at a time when five states including Uttar Pradesh will go to Assembly polls in February-March.
In his speech, Javadekar said the admission to JNVs is made through competitive exams and this year 22 lakh children had applied and 40,000 were selected.
He said that while the provision for reservations for SCs is less, but in JNVs, 25 per cent of the children belong to these sections.

Even with regard to Scheduled Tribe (ST), while the provision of reservations are around seven per cent, the number of such students in JNVs is around 19 per cent.

"These students did not come on (the basis of) caste, creed etc. They came on merit and also on the basis of provisions that if their number is more in a particular district," Javadekar said.
He said the difference between the SC, ST and General merit lists in JNVs is also not very much.
"We should understand that the nature has not discriminated in imparting intelligence on the basis of caste. Everyone has intelligence and the important question is who gets opportunity and then who works hard," Javadekar said, while emphasising the importance of providing opportunity to all.
The HRD Minister cited the example of Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli to emphasis on the importance of dedication, discipline and talent.

Javadekar said that the Modi government has announced 62 new JNVs this year.