The Reservation gimmick

This topic seems to be the one that is hotly debated on currently and rightly so. The bottom line is that reservations should be made on an economic basis rather than splitting the society into the ones who are over-fed and well-kept and those who have to fight hard for their daily meal.
The AIIMS doctors have done a great job in keeping the protests high and making clear their demands of eqaulity in reservations. Their propaganda through online forumns like blogs, orkut have to be realy appreciated. The protests by the IITs hasn't been as forthcoming but today there was a demonstration for an hour in the evening near Chepauk, besides the signature campaign and protest march held inside IITM held last month.

I have personally observed that people who come into IITs through the BC quota really struggle to keep up in academics through out their stay of 4 years. Despite undergoing a PC(preperatory course) for a year before enrolling into the first year, most of them have a tough time understanding what's going on during the lectures and this consequently reflects in their grades and GPAs. I rememeber a friend coming to me during the second year to know how to integrate a mathematical expression. Having cracked the JEE, one should really be thorough with the basics of calculus, but this doesn't seem to be the case with those who come in to the IITs through the BC quota system. How then is the purpose of providing premier education to the so called down-trodden served by admitting students through quota into universities like the IITs?
And it is also a fact that most of the quota seats are unfilled.By doubling the reservation to around 50%, most of which wouldn't be utilised, I don't see any meaningful purpose being fullfilled other than increasing the angst of the people who appear for the JEE and narrowly miss a seat that was lying awaste in the quota category.

In a country where there are millions of people who are unable to pursue primary education and secondary education due to economic constraints or are afforded with a poor quality of the same, it is sad to see that those who are pro-reservation haven't noticed the root cause of the problem or are oblivious to its existence. The only way to uplift the 'down-trodden' is by ensuring that students at the primary and secondary levels are provided with quality education so that they are at an equal-footing when it comes to competing for the seats of engineering and medical colleges at the under-graduate level. Having done this, if there is still a need felt to reserve seats for students in colleges, then that should be done on a purely economic basis since castes in contemporary India are a purely symbolic and historic division of the society with no 'economic factor' attached.