The 20 IIMs have requested the HRD ministry to exempt them from reservation of SC (Scheduled Cast), ST (Scheduled Tribes), OBC (Other Backward Classes) and EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) for the post of teachers.
Country’s premier B-schools want to keep its recruitment process fair and equal for every section.
Ninety per cent of the faculty in the IIMs belong to general category. Last year in the month of November, HRD ministry asked all the IIMs to reserve quotas for the SC, ST, OBC and EWS as per the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act.
Till now, the IIMs have been following the 1975 order of the Department of Personnel and Training which exempted scientific and technical posts from the reservation policy.
But in November, the order from HRD ministry said, “supersedes all previous orders/notifications/communication” in the matter of reservation. All the IIMs were required to prepare themselves to reserve posts in the future as per the above mentioned act.
In the letter sent by IIMs to the HRD ministry mentions a clause ‘Institutions of Excellence’ as part of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act.
Section 4 of this act exempts ‘institutions of excellence, research institutions, institutions of national and strategic importance’ from the reservation policy.
There are a few institutes which fall under the category of ‘Institutes of Excellence’ such as, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, National Brain Research Centre, North-Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Science, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Physical Research Laboratory, Space Physics Laboratory, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing and Homi Bhabha National Institute and its 10 constituent units.
According to the reservation policy, IIMs are required to reserve 15 per cent positions for the SCs, 7.5 per cent for STs, 27 per cent for OBC and 10 per cent for EWS.
