India, May 20 -- The Odisha Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Manmohan Samal on Tuesday said the government is taking steps to extend the 11.25% reservation for students from the Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC) in medical, technical and engineering courses.

Samal, who was responding to criticism by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) over the implementation of the 11.25% quota that does not cover medical and technical courses, questioned why the previous BJD and Congress governments hadn't notified the SEBC (which is interchangeably used for OBC in Odisha) quota for admission to educational institutions.

"Though Congress and BJD were in government for a long time, they could not implement it. BJP is consistently in support ...