He said the Cabinet also approved a slew of measures to benefit Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes students. On the OBC proposal mooted by the Department of Personnel and Training and approved by the Cabinet, Chavan said instructions would be issued to pave the way for conducting Special Recruitment Drive for filling up the backlog of 28,670 reserved vacancies of OBCs.

He said a 1997 Supreme Court order had stated that the quota of reserved seats cannot exceed 50 per cent of the total seats being filled. However, Parliament through the 81st amendment to the Constitution had made an exception to this principle enabling the government to fill accumulated vacancies from previous years through special recruitment drives for SCs and STs.