‘Indian Institute of Upper Caste’: 9 IIMs violated PhD reservation norms, says IIT Bombay group

NEW DELHI: Nine Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have been violating the reservation norms in PhD admissions for the past 5 years, the data obtained through RTI filed by the students’ collective, Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) IIT Bombay, revealed.

A total of 188 students of Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Caste (OBC) categories were denied admission in the last 5 years (2018 to 2022), as per the RTI data obtained from IIMs.

Across nine IIMs, only 5.4 percent SC students, 1.8 percent ST and 16.7 percent OBC students got admission. A majority of 76.1 percent students belonged to the general category which includes EWS students, as per the data shared by the IIT Bombay students’ collective.

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According to the IIM reservation norms, 110 seats are reserved for SC, 55 for ST and 199 for the OBC category. However, only 40 SC, 13 ST and 123 OBC students were admitted in the IIMs between 2018 to 2022.

Tagging the Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), the IIT Bombay students’ collective tweeted, “...188 dalit bahujan adivasi students were denied their rightful seats in the last 5 years.”

Reservation norms violated by IIMs in last 5 years (Image: Twitter/@AppscIITb)

As per the IIM Admission norms, 27% of the seats are reserved for NC-OBC, 15% for SC, 7.5% for ST candidates, 5% for Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwD), and up to 10% for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).

The situation is similar in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) as well. According to a Lok Sabha reply, IITs have admitted only 2.5% ST students in the institutes in 2021. The data collated from the ministry of education (MoE) by ChintaBAR, an independent student body recognised by IIT Madras, revealed that “the intake is unfairly skewed against students from SC/ST/OBC communities”.