Over 50% DU applicants are from Delhi

Most of the applications and admissions are anyway from Delhi. It is a natural trend that students apply to university in areas close to them.

More than half the applicants for the merit-based undergraduate courses this year at the University of Delhi are from Delhi. Amid calls for reservation for Delhi residents in DU by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, it is also seen that almost half the students who got admitted to the central university in 2016 were from the state.

DU has received over two lakh applications, by 5 pm on Monday. Of these over 50% applicants are from Delhi, followed by students from neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and Rajasthan, as per the data released by the university.

“Most applications and admissions are anyway from Delhi. It is a natural trend that students apply to university in areas close to them,” said an official.

Out of the 2,07,751 applications received, over 1.2 lakh are from Delhi this year. In addition, last year, almost 50% of the students who were admitted to DU were also from Delhi.

“Last year, out of the 57,739 students who were admitted to DU (colleges), 28,731 students were from Delhi,” said Ashutosh Bhardwaj, the officer on special duty (OSD) admissions at DU.

Kejriwal had on Sunday reiterated Aam Aadmi Party’s demand for reservation for students coming from Delhi, at least in the 28 DU colleges that get financial aid from the government.

“I would request Manish (Sisodia, the deputy CM and education minister) to explore the possibility of reserving 80%-85% seats in these colleges for Delhi students,” Kejriwal had said.

People from across party lines have made similar demands in the past as well. Recently, members from the Bharatiya Janata Party had met the vice-chancellor to demand the same. In 2013, the Congress government raised the same demand.

The demands have, however, been deemed unrealistic, as DU is a central university, which cannot set reservations based on domicile.

“DU is a central university which means students coming from any part of India have to be treated at par. As long as the constituent colleges, even if they are 100% funded by the Delhi government, are under DU Act, there cannot be reservations based on domicile,” said a top DU official.

Another official said that reservation for Delhi residents is possible in state universities such as Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) and Indraprastha University (IP) but not DU.

Both AUD and IP have 85% seats reserved for Delhi students.

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