Shameless Governments: Anti-affirmative Democracy

06Jan10

Failure of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Govt. of India in proper implementation of SC/ST reservation on teaching posts in the institutes/universities under its control, and other related matters has fetched stigma to Indian governance after 60 years of Self-rule

Greetings of the New Year. In continuation of our earlier representation dated 20.08.2009, we would like to elicit the following facts in the matter for your kind consideration and necessary action:

1. We have filed an RTI application in the MHRD to obtain current status of SC/ST representation in teaching posts in the Centrally Funded Universities and Institutes of Higher Education (CFUIHEs) under the Control of MHRD (copy of our RTI application is attached as Annexure-1). In the first instant, we came across to a shocking situation of MHRD that it has no statistical data about the SC/ST representation in teaching posts in universities / institutes. The MHRD forwarded our RTI application to the UGC for providing information about the central universities and to the other institutes for providing information individually.

2. The information provided by the UGC and some other institutes shows alarming situation of SC/ST representation in teaching posts in CFUIHEs under the control of MHRD even after 60 years of implementation of Constitution of independent India. The extract of the information with reference is given in the following table:

Percentage of SC+ST representation at the level of Assistant Professor: 8.86%
Percentage of SC+ST representation at the level of Associate Professor: 2.13%
Percentage of SC+ST representation at the level of Professor: 1.04%
Overall representation of SC+ST in teaching posts: 5.06%

3. The data presented in the table shows that against 22.5 %, there is only 5.06% representation of SCs and STs in teaching positions. Also, some institutes like NITs/IITs have claimed that SC/ST reservation is applicable at the entry level post (i.e., Lecturer or Assistant Professor) only and not applicable in the post of Associate Professor and Professor. This is not true. As per the directives of DoPT, Govt. of India, SC/ST reservation is applicable in all direct recruitments (i.e. posts of group A, B, C, D) since 1950. Moreover, order No. F. No. 6-30/2005 U-5 dated 6th December, 2005 of MHRD and UGC guidelines (F. No. 1-5/2006 (SCT) dated 25.08.2006, Clause 6(a)) on SC/ST reservation states that
Reservation is applicable to all teaching posts such as the posts of Lecturers, Readers, Professors, or by whatever other nomenclature the posts are known, and to all posts of non-teaching staff of all the Universities, Deemed to be Universities, Colleges, and other grant-in-aid or research institutes and Centres.[Annexure-2]
Except University of Delhi and Jamia Millia Islamia, most of the Universities which are under the control of UGC have just started to provide SC/ST reservation in the post of Associate Professor (Reader) and Professor also. The institutes like IITs /IIMs /IIITs /NITs /NIFFT /NCERT etc. which are deemed to be universities under the direct control of MHRD are not providing SC/ST reservation on the post of Associate Professor and Professor (copies of some advertisements are attached as Annexure-3). Apart from the directives of MHRD /UGC, the DoPT has launched several special recruitment drives for SC/ST to fill up the backlog reserved vacancies. Except very few central universities, no university/institute has launched special recruitment drive for teaching posts.

4. There are also some variances and anomaly in the directives of MHRD for reservation in teaching posts in different institutes. In case of IITs, the MHRD’s order F. No. 16-8/2000-TS.1 dated 9th June, 2008 provides that in the subjects of Science and Technology, reservation is applicable at the level of Lecturer/Assistant Professor and in other subjects it is applicable in full including posts of Professor and Associate Professor (Annexure-4). Not only this, there is a provision of de-reservation also which is violation of directives of DoPT about the ban on de-reservation. Most of the institutes of technical education are using this directive of MHRD to avoid SC/ST reservation at the level of Associate Professor and Professor even these are not applicable for them.

5. It appears that the MHRD is not implementing reservation policy uniformly and sincerely on teaching posts in the universities and institutes under its control. Issuing some directives on reservation is only eye wash of the SC/ST community of India unless these are not implemented uniformly and strictly. The poor representation of SC/ST community and non-implementation of SC/ST reservation and other welfare schemes in letter and spirit in CFUIHEs have arisen so many questions such as (i) whether MHRD is sincere and sensitive towards the Article 46 of the Constitution (ii) what been SC and ST Commissions doing since last 50 years (iii) what been SC/ST MPs doing in the parliament since last 50 years (iv) what been parliamentary standing committee on SC/ST welfare doing since last 50 years. However, there are various reports of the parliamentary standing committee on SC/ST welfare available on the website of Loksabha in which enactment of SC/ST reservation bill and enhancement in the powers of SC/ST commission have been recommended. Unfortunately, Govt. is not taking care of these recommendations.

6. It is also worth to mention that institutes particularly, technical institutes admits the SC/ST students as per reservation policy but do not bother about their welfare during the study. The rate of failure/dropout of SC/ST students in the technical institutes like IITs/NITs/IIMs/ISM etc. is very high. Reason for the same is non-availability of extra care (financial and academic inputs) for SC/ST students during their study. Although Govt. of India has many scholarships for financially week SC/ST students, but in most of the institutes, authorities of institutes do not take interests in the proper and timely payment of scholarships. For example, when students come in the second year or third year they got scholarship of first year. There are so many agencies (MHRD, MSJ&E, MTA, ONGC, NTPC, State Govt., UGC and institutes itself etc.) who provide scholarships to poor SC/ST students. At a time a student can avail only one scholarship. A large number of agencies for scholarships create complicacy for the host institute to pursue with individual agency. It is therefore worth to mention that there should be some Centralised Agency to provide scholarships to SC/ST students studying in the institutes of GOI. For this purpose the UGC or institutes themselves can be the best agency so that delay in the scholarships may be avoided.

7. Further, due to their poor academic performance most of the SC/ST students do not complete their degrees in the stipulated time or leave the institute without completing the degree. Also due to poor performance most of the SC/ST students do not get employment through campus placement. The high failure rate of SC/ST students in these institutes can be reduced by providing some extra care in the form of timely distribution and extra classes for week students. It is doubtful that authorities / teachers of institutes other than SC/ST community may be sensitive about the welfare of SC/ST students. Therefore, a sufficient number of SC/ST teachers in the CFUIHEs are required for educational development of the community.

8. Most of the institutes have SC/ST Cells only for the name shake. Officer-in-charge of SC/ST Cells are junior officers (most probably non-SC/ST) of institutes who do not dare to ask the higher authorities for doing something for the welfare of SC/ST students and employees in the institutes. It is also worth to mention that there is no law for punitive action against the heads of institutes who do not implement schemes of SC/ST welfare properly. In the absence of law for punishment these officers do not bother about the implementation of schemes for welfare of SC/ST students and employees. Usually SC/ST people approach to SC/ST Commissions for their grievances but, unfortunately, the SC/ST Commissions are not given full powers for the safeguard of SC/ST community. The decisions of SC/ST Commissions in any matter are treated as only recommendation.

9. Most important and sensitive issue is the representation of SC/ST candidates in the Governing bodies (Executive Councils/Boards, Academic Council etc.) of CFUIHEs. As per the UGC guidelines referred above, there should be SC/ST representatives in Executive Boards and Academic Councils of CFUIHEs. In practice there are hardly any institute where we can see SC/ST representative in their governing bodies.

10. The issues discussed above, clearly indicate that Article 46 of the Constitution and reservation policy has not received proper attention and respect in the institutes of higher education under the control of MHRD even after various recommendations of UGC/SC-ST Commission/Parliamentary Committee and various judgements of Hon`ble Supreme Court. You may agree with us that education is the only key which opens all the doors of upliftments for any society. Therefore, to ensure the quality education for SC/ST should be the main objective of the agencies responsible for the upliftment of SC/ST. In the last three years, we have requested the MHRD/UGC/PMO etc. several times to ensure effective implementation of reservation policy and other welfare schemes for SC/ST in CFUIHEs, but no significant action has been taken by them in the matter.

Sir, in view of above facts, you are humbly requested to kindly look personally into this sensitive matter and take necessary action in the following manner:

a) Kindly take a project to visit the universities/institutes under the control of MHRD and investigate in all the matters related with SC/ST welfare. You are also requested to kindly interact with the SC/ST students and teachers/employees of the institutes.

b) Kindly ask the MHRD to implement SC/ST reservation in teaching posts uniformly and strictly in all the universities/institutes as per UGC guidelines [F. No 1-5/2006 (SCT) dated 25.08.2006] which provides a road map to implement reservation policy and welfare schemes in the institutes of higher education.

c) Kindly ensure to make it mandatory of the CFUIHEs to have at least one SC/ST representative in their Governing Bodies and Academic Councils.

d) Kindly ask the MHRD to make a provision that SC/ST scholarships should be directly distributed to the eligible SC/ST students through a single channel either institute or UGC so that students can get their scholarships at the starting of academic session.

e) Kindly ask the Govt. of India to give full powers of the High Court to SC/ST Commissions.

f) Kindly ask the Govt. of India to enact SC/ST reservation Bill including punitive action against the officers responsible for non-implementation of SC/ST reservation and other welfare schemes.

g) Kindly ensure effective implementation of policies/schemes for SC/ST welfare in letter and spirit by any other method which you feel necessary and appropriate.

Compiled by-
(Dr. Prasad) & (Dr. Singh)

Filed under: Affirmative action, Indian caste system   |  5 Comments
Tags: reservation system