Muslim quota to go down to 58.67%

Christians to get 40.6% and other minorities 0.73%

KOCHI The minority scholarship quota for Muslims will be reduced drastically from 80% to 58.67% whereas the share of the entire Christian community would be nearly 40.6% with the Kerala High Court ordering a population-based allocation of the merit-cum-means scholarship for the minorities. The other minority communities including Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains, can stake claim for the remaining 0.73%. The court had on Friday scrapped the 80:20 ratio of distribution of the benefits and struck down three orders in this regard. The scholarship has its genesis in the Rajinder Sachar Commission report, which looked into the socio, economic and educational conditions of Muslims in India and the subsequent Paloli Mohammad Kutty committee report, which suggested steps for implementing the recommendations of the commission report in Kerala. Both committees had exclusively looked into the issues faced by the Muslims and suggested measures for alleviating them.