Mumbai: Nearly ten months since the Union ministry of education directed centrally funded higher education institutes to fill staff vacancies, including those under the reserved category, several Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are still struggling to fill up posts, as per the response given to a Right to Information (RTI) query.
Under Mission Mode Recruitment introduced last year, the older IITs like Bombay and Delhi have managed to fill only 40% and 26.6% of vacant posts in reserved categories, respectively, while nearly 66% of teaching posts were filled in IIT Madras.
These figures were revealed in response to the RTI application and shared in a series of tweets by students part of the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) IIT Bombay. The RTI also revealed how despite receiving thousands of applications and shortlisting a large number of applicants, not many are being hired by the institutes.
“Applications were invited, and many candidates were shortlisted as well. However, we are offering jobs based on the job criteria, and if a candidate does not meet the criteria, the job is not offered. Applications are rejected for no other reason,” said a senior official from IIT B, on condition of anonymity.
In November 2020, the ministry asked the IITs to extend reservations to senior staff positions, and the institutes had also been prohibited from “de-reserving” the reserved post after a year.
As per the central law, government institutes are required to implement a reservation of 27% in teaching staff for OBC candidates, 15% for SC and 7.5% for ST candidates.
In August 2021, the ministry of education instructed centrally funded higher education institutes, such as the IITs, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), to fill vacancies including reserved ones in “mission mode” following which several IITs, including IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Madras, and IIT-BHU, advertised faculty posts at all the levels inviting applications to fill posts reserved for SC, ST, OBC, EWS, and disabled candidates.
“Despite thousands of applications, IITs are not shortlisting or selecting enough candidates. This shows a clear objective of such institutes to avoid diversity in their faculty and therefore, we demand that the government take a stern stand against such centrally funded higher education institutes and force them to continue the mission mode recruitment until their staff representation reaches constitutional provision,” said a spokesperson for APPSC IITB.