Ever since Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh (UP), certain sections of the media have been trying really hard to falsely exaggerate whatever he is trying to do.
On Wednesday, news that the newly-elected CM had scrapped caste-based reservation in private medical and dental colleges in UP started doing the rounds in social media. Certain media organizations also picked up this news, even congratulating Adityanath for the move – without caring to verify if such news was indeed true.
“Yogi Adityanath government has just made an announcement to end quota based reservations in private medical and dental colleges of up,” one such report claimed, gushing at the speed with which Adityanath has been working to improve the state. The report has now been edited.
As it turns out, the news was indeed fake. Officials of the state’s medical education department have rubbished the story entirely.
“It is wrong to say that rules of reservation have been scrapped from the private medical and dental colleges. Reservation was never a part of the admission process in private sector medical and dental colleges as per the prevalent policy made in 2006. There has been no change in any policy whatsoever,” the director general of medical education, Dr VN Tripathi, told Times Of India.
He further said that efforts were on to regulate the functioning of private medical and dental colleges, following orders from the Supreme Court of India.
The confusion seems to have stemmed from an order issued by the Akhilesh Yadav government on March 10, 2017. This order clearly states that there would not be any provision for the reservation of students belonging to SC, ST and OBC categories in private medical and dental colleges during the admission process. This order merely reiterated the fact that caste-based reservation exists only in the government-run medical and dental colleges in UP, while the private colleges are exempt from this.
Tripathi denied that a fresh order had been issued on this matter by Yogi’s government. Speaking to the New Indian Express, he said: “The policy is as it was. There is no change in it. In fact, provision reservation is not there for any caste or community in private colleges.”