The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been persistently violating the reservation norms in admitting PhD students over the past few years, according to data submitted in the Parliament.

Union Minister for Human Resource Development (MHRD) Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ gave details of the number of PhD scholars admitted into each of the 23 IITs in the country in reply to questions raised by Members of Parliament K Somaprasad and Elamaram Kareem.

As per the MHRD’s records, between 2014 and 2019, the IITs admitted 25,007 scholars into their PhD programs, of which only 23.2% of seats went to candidates from Other Backward Communities (OBCs), 9% to those from Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 2.1% from Scheduled Tribes (STs). This is despite the reservation mandated for students from OBC, SC and ST in central government institutions under the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) (CEI) Act, 2006. The remaining 65.6% seats were allotted to students from the general category.

According to the CEI Act, IITs are supposed to allocate 15% of the total admissions to those from Scheduled Castes, 7.5% of the total seats to students from Scheduled Tribes and 27% of the total admissions for candidates from Other Backward Communities.

Over the last five years, among the five oldest IITs – Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Delhi and Kanpur, IIT-Madras has the lowest share of SC students at 6% as against the mandated 15% reservation. While IIT-Kanpur has the lowest percentage of ST students at 0.7% as against the mandated 7.5% in the last five years, IIT-Delhi has the lowest representation of students from the OBC communities at 16% as against the 27% reservation stipulated by law.

This information has sparked outrage among many student communities, who pointed out that they have always accused IITs of not following the reservation norms. Speaking to TNM, Iniyavan, the President of the Ambedkar Students’ Association in the University of Hyderabad said that such public educational institutions hiding behind the word ‘merit’ is an excuse for them to not follow the legally mandated reservation policy.

“We are not asking for a favour by asking IITs to abide by the reservation norms stipulated by law. We are asking for our right, which has been guaranteed to us by the constitution, the University Grants Commission and other regulatory bodies,” he explained.

Adding that by claiming to be ‘merit-based’ institutions, IITs are seeking an excuse to escape from their responsibility of ensuring social justice, Iniyavan asked, “How can any public educational institution claim to be meritorious when they don’t have enough representation from society?” He also stated that these institutions must first comply with the legally mandated reservation norms before speaking about merit.

Condemning the lack of action on the part of the MHRD against the IITs for neglecting the norms, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) said, “The poor implementation of the CEI Act, 2006 in PhD was earlier brought to the attention of the Union HRD Minister in December 2019 through a memorandum from the SFI and through a special mention in the Rajya Sabha by MP TK Rangarajan. There has been no follow-up from the ministry on these initiatives till date.”