NEW DELHI: India’s ruling coalition has decided to set aside half the seats in federally funded colleges for lower-caste candidates from next year, despite widespread protests by upper-caste students and doctors.

The plan to raise the proportion of reserved seats from 22.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent has run into bitter opposition since it was floated last month.

Protests have intensified in the past 10 days and many doctors have gone on strike, crippling healthcare in many cities.

In the eastern state of West Bengal, medical students and junior doctors stopped work on Wednesday, snapped telephone lines and drove away senior officials at a state-run hospital in Siliguri, about 550 km north of the capital, Kolkata.

They turned away some patients and padlocked hospital gates.

In Kolkata, doctors wearing white gowns marched through the streets with placards and begging bowls.

“Give us food and jobs,” Supriya Basu, a junior doctor said.

But despite the wave of protests, the Congress-party-led government, under pressure from communist allies and mindful of capturing lower-caste votes, decided on Tuesday night to push ahead with the plan.

“Legislation for this purpose will be brought before parliament in the monsoon session,” Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters late on Tuesday, adding the law would come into force from the academic year starting in June, 2007.

But in a bid to ease upper-caste anger, he said a committee would be set up to work out how to increase the total number of seats available for students competing on merit.

The protesters, led by medical students, say the quota law would reduce their opportunity to study medicine, engineering or management even if they had scored high marks.

However, lower-caste students say state support is necessary as they have long had fewer chances for quality education.—Reuters