IITs issue advertisements for quota-based hiring in senior faculty positions, following Centre's orders

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), have placed advertisements for quota-based hiring, for the first time, for senior positions i.e. professors and associate professors. The change in recruitment policies has come after directions from the Centre. In line with the government’s directives, the IITs, including IIT-BHU, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur,  have begun advertising faculty positions for all levels, inviting applications from SC, ST, EWS, OBC and specially-abled candidates to fill the reserved vacancies. In August this year, the Centre had asked all centrally-funded educational institutes, including the IITs, to fill all vacancies, including reserved ones, in “mission mode”, giving them a deadline till 4 September 2022 for the same. In November last year, the IITs had been asked to extend quota-based hiring to senior positions, according to Hindustan Times. The educational institutes had also been prohibited from “de-reserving” the reserved vacancies after one year. As per the previous norms, the IITs had no quota for ST/SC and OBC candidates in the recruitment for senior positions, except in the management and humanities faculties. Even in terms of entry level positions, the educational institutes were authorised to de-reserve the post after one year, if they were unable to find any suitable candidates from the reserved categories. This has led to very little diversity among the faculty, with data from 2018 revealing that of the total of 6,043 IIT faculty members in the country, only 149 belonged to the  SC category, while 21 members belonged to the ST category. However, according to Times of India, a committee set up in June last year to provide suggestions on implementation of reservation in central education institutes, said that the IITs should be exempted from reservation since they were institutes of national importance. The committee also said that each IIT’s board should be authorised to take decisions on quota-based hiring and the positions of associate professor and professor should be exempted from the same.