The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has denied as many as 80 seats to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Class (OBC) students and admitted 95 more General category students in this year's PhD admission, as per the RTI data obtained by IIT Bombay's Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC).
APPSC, a student collective, has been recording PhD admission data for eight years since 2015.
"We obtain data like the number of applicants, number of students going to the interview round and more. What we have noticed based on this data is that the fallout of candidates is happening at the interview stage. This year, what we found is that there were more than enough candidates from each category as compared to the number of vacancies released by IIT Bombay. Yet, 80 reserved seats have been denied to SC, ST and OBC students," alleged an APPSC cell member, on the condition, in a conversation with EdexLive.
The data shared by APPSC shows that 263 PhD students admitted this year to IIT Bombay are from the General category, making up 66 per cent of the total admissions. Meanwhile, only 9 per cent of the admitted students are from SC and only 3 per cent from ST category.
The reservation norms reserve 15 per cent of all seats for SC students and 7.5 per cent for ST students. The RTI data obtained by the APPSC reveals that the IIT Bombay has violated reservation norms.
Moreover, APPSC said that the number of minority students in the premiere technological institute has been going down for the past eight years.
This year's data showed that as many as 20 departments in IIT Bombay did not admit any ST students during PhD admissions this year. Moreover, 11 departments did not admit any SC students and five departments did not admit any OBC students this year, according to APPSC.
The student group also revealed that IIT Bombay's Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA) has not received even a single ST admission for nine years now.
When EdexLive reached out to the institute, a spokesperson from IIT Bombay said that the numbers being circulated by the APPSC are "incorrect". Official data and further details on PhD admissions are awaited from the institute.
"No inclusivity"
A month ago, the institute released a set of new ‘anti-discriminatory guidelines’ for inclusivity within the campus.
This happened after allegations of caste discrimination against the premiere institute that surfaced following the death of Darshan Solanki, a first-year BTech (Chemical) student at IIT Bombay.
"The guidelines said that IIT Bombay implements, and is proud to implement, the reservation policy of the Constitution in letter and in spirit. However, the data we have obtained does not show any inclusivity or adherence to the reservation policy," the APPSC member claimed.
