KEY TAKEAWAYS

■ The government has announced a 25% seat increase to ensure that there is no reduction in number of open seats due to 10% EWS reservation. This has been done without a concrete promise to increase budgetary allocation for higher education.

■ A similar seat increase was done during OBC reservations under the UPA government. Although funding increased significantly, it has not been enough to ensure that quality of education was maintained.

■ Bulk of the funding came in plan-grants which do not take care of recurring expenses such as faculty salaries and running laboratories. Student-teacher ratio has come down in the last two years for which data is available.

■ Increasing more seats without adequate allocation could increase these problems even more.