December 22, 2022
Abir Ranjan Biswas’s Special Mention in the Rajya Sabha on 22.12.22 on vacancies in seats reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs in higher education institutes
Sir, according to the Education Ministry, India’s elite higher educational institutes like IITs and IIMs are far behind in fulfilling their commitments to ensure inclusivity in higher education. The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 mandates 15 per cent, 7.5 per cent and 27 per cent quotas for SC, ST and OBC students respectively. However, the intake of students under the reserved categories in IITs and IIMs are much lower than the mandated norms. The acceptance rate of applications for SCs, STs and OBCs in IIMs has been below four per cent for the past four years. Sir, IIM Ahmedabad received 200 Ph.D. applications from SCs between 2018-19 and 2021-22 but only two have been accepted. They got 78 applications from STs; out of which only two were accepted. During the same period, IIM Bangalore accepted three out of 188 applications by SCs and none out of the 52 applications by STs were accepted. IIM Calcutta accepted nine out of 219 applications by SCs, IIM Lucknow accepted nine out of 78, IIM Kozhikode accepted two out of 298 and Indore accepted four out of 97. There is a serious under-representation of STs with only 2.5 per cent, that is, only 137 students out of 3,430 eligible applicants admitted across all IITs. Last year, 137 out of 3,430 ST candidates and 574 out of 17,075 SC students secured admission. Less than 10 per cent of all PhD candidates at IITs in 2021 were SCs. Even for OBC reservations, most of the IITs are below the mandated 27 per cent. The Government should take necessary steps in this regard. Thank you.
