Arunthathiyars’ special quota: Law enacted during DMK regime in 2009 benefits community, reveals RTI

Tamil Nadu law benefits Arunthathiyars with 3% reservation within SC quota, increasing seats in professional courses significantly.

A law, enacted during the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government’s regime in 2009, envisaging the provision of 3% reservation for Arunthathiyars within the 18% quota of Scheduled Castes, has benefitted the community, going by responses of the Directorates of Technical Education (DTE) and Medical Education and Research (DME) to a query by The Hindu under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

In respect of the coveted professional course of MBBS, the total number of seats went up by about 82% between 2018-19 and 2023-24. In other words, it rose from 3,600 to 6,553. As for the Scheduled Castes (Arunthathiyars) or SC(A), the increase was a little more than 80% — 107 in 2018-19 to 193 in 2023-24. In the case of Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course, in 2018-19, the takers among SC(A) for the course hardly accounted for 1.5% of the total number of candidates but their figure rose to 3% five years later.   

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The DME, in its communication, stated that it did not collect data for the SC(A) category for the period from 2009-10 to 2017-18. However, the high level committee, constituted by the present DMK government in 2021, regarding the impact of NEET [National Eligibility cum Entrance Test] on medical admissions in Tamil Nadu, had stated that between 2010-11 and 2017-18, both in government and self-financed colleges, the quota of SC(A) had varied from 3.26% (in 2010-11) to 2.86% in 2015-16, in the case of government colleges, and from 2.98% (in 2011-12) to 2.66% (in 2016-17) with regard to self-financed colleges. Since 2017-18, admission to the medical courses in the State is done through the NEET. 

With regard to admission to engineering courses, the strength of SC(A) students increased from 1,193 in 2009-10 to 3,944 in 2023-24. There was a rise of about 230% or an annual average growth rate of 15%. According to information available with this journalist independent of the DTE’s reply, given the fact that the SC(A)’s sub-quota is 16% of the overall SC quota, the share of the community’s students under the SCs was well below this figure — fluctuating from 8.7% in 2016-17 to 14.6% in 2019-20.  

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In mid August 2024, The Hindu addressed the query to the State Department of Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare (ADTW) regarding the efficacy of the 2009 law in the last 15 years with regard to education and public employment. The query had also sought data with regard to the status of presence of the Arunthathiyars in the 15 years prior to the provision of the sub-quota.