'IITs miss faculty hiring goals for reservations'

LACK OF DIVERSITY | Despite a special recruitment drive, IITs at Delhi, Bombay, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati are lagging behind

- Musab Qazi

A recent right to information (RTI) request filed by the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSSC) at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) has once again put spotlight on poor representation of faculty from scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST), and other backward classes (OBC) across several Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Despite a special recruitment drive launched to enhance diversity, IITs at Delhi, Bombay, Bhubaneswar, and Guwahati, are lagging behind.

At IIT Bombay, the RTI data revealed a significant lack of diversity among the faculty. Eight departments have no SC, ST, or OBC faculty members at all, while 25 departments are without any ST faculty, 12 have no SC representation, and another 12 have no OBC faculty. Out of more than 670 general category faculty members at the institute, only 58 are from the SC, ST, and OBC categories.