Congress leader KC Venugopal (file photo)
New Delhi: Congress MP from Kerala in Rajya Sabha, KC Venugopal, told the House that there is caste-based discrimination still prevailing in higher educational institutions. On Friday, he asked the Centre to take steps to stop the said discrimination against Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (SC), and Other Backward Classes (OBC), Hindustan Times reported.
A day ago, Congress MP K Suresh presented worrying statistics which suggested that around 13,500 students belonging to the SC, ST, and OBC communities dropped out of central universities, the Indian Institute of Technology, and the Indian Institute of Management in the last five years. Presenting the statistics in the House, Suresh also sought steps to stop this discrimination.
Venugopal told the House that the issue needs immediate intervention from the Centre.
Venugopal briefed the data, which suggested that around 4,596 OBC candidates, 2,424 SC candidates, and 2,622 ST candidates have dropped out of central universities in the last five years.
From the IITs2,066 OBC candidates, 1,068 SC candidates, and 408 ST candidates have dropped out. From IIMs, the data is 163 OBC candidates, 188 SC candidates, and 91 ST candidates.
The Centre, on Thursday, had reasoned that students were dropping out of courses to join other programmes, which is why a big course-dropping data. Venugopal, whether OBC, ST, and SC students alone change courses. He wondered why this is happening to minority categories alone.
“It should also be noted that our major institutions like IIM and IIT were in the headlines due to caste-based discrimination and other discriminatory activities”, HT quoted.
Later Venugopal pointed out the high suicide rates among the ST, ST, and OBC people in the mentioned period. He said that as per records, 122 students died by suicide in Centre –run institutes between 2014 and 2021. Out of the count, 24 belonged to the SC community, three were from the ST community, and 41 were from OBCs.