"Govt take no decision on exempting IITs from faculty reservation" says Education Minister

New Delhi: Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Thursday informed the parliament that Union government has not taken any decision on exempting IITs from faculty reservation.

Eight-member committee comprising IIT directors were asked to suggest proper measures on the implementation of reservation policies in both recruitment and admission.

"The committee had submitted its last report on June and it got circulated in all concerned ministries, comments have also received from them," Pokhriyal told in a written statement in Parliament.

In the report which is submitted to Ministry of Education in June, the panel had urged to exempt IITs from reservation as they are "institutes of national importance and involved in academical research".

The Committee report further suggests improving the social representation at the Ph.D. level through a predoctoral training program of two years. It specifies that there is no guarantee that all those who opt for a two-year training shall be selected to do Ph.D. at IITs.

Following this, earlier various student organizations and faculty from SC/ST background condemned the report. On December APPSC in IIT Bombay said "IITs will be pushing the students from SC/ST/OBC into a black hole where there is no future and job opportunities".

They had also demanded to reject IITs' demand to be included in the list of reservation exempted institutions, revise a clearly stated mechanism to fill the backlog seats, remove the cut-off from the admissions and follow the reservation mandate and release a proper notification of the Ph.D. positions and its category-wise distribution in the departments.