The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the Human Resource Development Ministry’s proposal to introduce an ordinance that will restore the 200-point roster for faculty reservation in universities. The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Ordinance 2019 ensures that a university will be considered as a unit when appointing faculty and that the quota for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes remains intact.

The development will allow the filling up of 5,000 vacancies in the teachers’ cadre by direct recruitment and improve teaching standards in higher educational institutions, the Centre said.

On Tuesday, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar reiterated the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government’s commitment to the 200-point roster system for faculty reservation in universities, ANI had reported.

The Supreme Court in January upheld an Allahabad High Court ruling that reservation in faculty posts in universities should be applied department-wise and not by treating the university as one unit. The University Grants Commission’s new “13-point roster system” introduced in March meant that jobs for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes would reduce.

Javadekar’s statement followed calls for a nationwide bandh by Adivasi rights organisations on Tuesday. Dalit rights groups had demanded the promulgation of an ordinance that will overturn the 13-point roster system.

There have been demands from the Opposition parties to restore the “200-point roster system” for recruitment as well. Congress President Rahul Gandhi last month wrote to Javadekar, urging him to revert to the earlier roster system. Gandhi had said that the adoption of the 13-point roster system had “severely eroded the spirit of reservation” guaranteed under the Constitution.