Only five ST lecturers work in 20 IIMs across India despite reservation in seats, reveals Ministry of Education

Only five lecturers hailing belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category are employed in Indian Institutes of Managements across the country, reveals data released by the Ministry of Education. While 24 posts are reserved for members from ST communities across 20 IIMs, 19 of them remain vacant. At the same time, 62 per cent of the posts reserved for SCs and 63 per cent of the posts reserved for OBCs too remain vacant.

The data was released by the Ministry, answering a question posed by three Congress MPs — Manickam Tagore B, Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka and Benny Behanan. The MPs asked the Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal the total number of sanctioned reserved posts for SCs, STs and OBCs in all Central Universities, Research Institutions, IITs, IIMs and IISc. The data indicates that almost half (45 per cent) of these posts remain vacant in all the institutes and universities combined.

In all the 42 Central Universities combined, 46 per cent of the reserved posts are vacant, as of January 1, 2021. While 61 per cent of SC and 58 per cent of the ST posts are filled, only 48 per cent of the OBC posts are filled here. In IITs, where the data was available only for the non-faculty posts, 40 per cent of the reserved posts are vacant (This includes 36 per cent vacant SC posts, 47 per cent vacant ST posts  and 41 per cent vacant OBC posts). 

In IISERs, 44 per cent of the reserved posts are vacant. In IISc, 63 per cent posts reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs are vacant. In Indira Gandhi National Open Universities, 41 per cent, 42 per cent and 67 per cent of the posts reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs are vacant.

The situation is comparatively better in the three Sanskrit Central Universities. Even though not all posts are filled here, only 13 per cent of them are vacant. Recently, there was a lot of hue and cry over unfilled reserved PhD seats in IITs and other Centrally Funded Technical Institutes. Even though a committee was appointed by the MoE to investigate this in 2020, it is interesting to note that it has recommended that the 23 IITs should be exempted from reservations under Central Education Institutions (CEI) Act, 2019.