New Delhi, January 29
Faculty positions in 47 institutes of excellence in higher education will not be subjected to reservation for the Schedules Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The government’s decision in this respect stems from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Reservation in Posts and Services) Bill, 2008, passed by the Rajya Sabha last December.
The Bill defines the said institutes as institutes of excellence and exempts them from following the general rule of reserving faculty positions for SC and ST candidates on quality consideration. The Bill will be tabled in the Lok Sabha in the forthcoming session of Parliament.
Yesterday at the 39th meeting of the IIT Council here, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh announced the Centre’s decision. “The Council was informed that the Bill introduced by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had been passed by the Rajya Sabha in its last session that provides for exemption from reservation in respect of appointment of faculty to posts higher than the lowest grade of group A posts in institutes of excellence, including IITs. The Bill is expected to be introduced in the Lok Sabha in the ensuing Parliament session,” a ministry release said.
This means all existing IITs, IIMs, NITs and universities like Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, Benaras Hindu University, Allahabad University and AIIMS will be exempted from making faculty reservations for SCs and STs.
It, however, remains to be clarified if the six new IITs (at Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Orissa, Punjab and Gujarat) would be also treated as institutes of excellence and exempted from reserving faculty posts for the SCs and STs.
Sources in the ministry did not clear this confusion, with some IIT professors today saying the rule is applicable only to old IITs and not the new ones. “This distinction does not make sense,” they said.
The IIT Council, meanwhile, endorsed the proposal containing the names of six candidates for recommending to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, for appointment as directors of six new IITs. It also recommended that the age of superannuation of directors of IITs be enhanced from 65 to 70 years to bring it on a par with that for vice-chancellors of the central universities.
To meet the shortage of faculty in IITs where 20 per cent posts are lying unfilled, the Council has decided that a committee of directors would look into a new proposal — faculty induction and development programme — to address the issue.
The scheme would include programmes like identifying bright students on the verge of completion of their doctoral research as well as doing post doctoral work either in India or abroad.
