Kolkata, Dec 16 (IANS): The West Bengal cabinet Monday ratified the rules of the "West Bengal Higher Education Reservation in Admission Bill", thereby paving the way for reservation to Other Backward Classes (OBC) in education.

State Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee said seats for general category candidates will not be affected. The new policy will be implemented from the 2015-16 academic year.

"We passed the rules in a cabinet meeting today (Monday). Seats for the general category will remain untouched. The rules will not affect the general seats," Mukherjee told reporters here.

The state government will have to add in a phased manner 4,15,408 seats in undergraduate courses and 30,334 seats in postgraduate courses to implement the reservation policy.

The bill passed by the state assembly in March provides reservation for Scheduled Castes (22 percent), Scheduled Tribes (six percent) and 10 percent for OBC Category-A and seven percent for OBC Category-B (Hindu).

As par the law, students constituting the creamy layer (to be specified by a directive later) will not get reservation benefits. The reservation will not surpass 50 percent of seats in any higher educational institution.