'No confrontation with judiciary'

There is absolutely no question of a confrontation with the judiciary on the OBC quota issue, said Veerappa Moily, chairman, Administrative Reforms Committee.

The endeavour, Moily said here on Monday was to expand the 'knowledge area' by bringing large numbers onto the mainstream of higher education and the road map to this was etched out scientifically after giving a thought to every detail.

Around Rs17,760 crore worth of grants, spread over the Five Year Plan period, scholarship schemes and exhaustive collection of relevant data were carried out in advance.

Though the heads of IIMs and IITs had rejected the proposal initially, they were impressed with the groundwork, he said, undertaken which was a step in the right direction, he observed.

As for the issue of contention over the 1931 census as the year for deciding on the OBC quota, the statistics with the Ministry of Health and Family Planning, the BPL factor and the Mandal committee recommendations could easily serve as a ready recokner, he said.