TNN,
Mumbai Edition, 03rd Aug 2008
This year, six new Indian Institutes of Technology
were brought into being, each with 120 seats —that’s
a total of 720 seats.
And yet, because the OBC, SC and ST quotas could not be
filled up (as enough applicants could not get the generously
relaxed pass marks set for these categories), as many as
432 seats will go abegging.
Consider the absurdity of the situation. On the one hand,
new IITs are being created at enormous cost; on the other,
as many as 432 seats—that’s the equivalent of
threeand-a-half IITs—are being allowed to go waste.
In Saturday’s edition, we wrote a Times View saying:
“To let over 430 seats in IITs go vacant is a criminal
waste of infrastructure (such as faculty and physical facilities).
Reservations are meant to give disadvantaged sections of
society a boost. But where quotas cannot be filled because
there aren’t enough suitable candidates, the cut-off
for the general category should be relaxed so that all seats
are used up—the cut-off will still be higher than
for SC/STs, so no one can argue that it will dilute academic
standards. As with airline seats and hotel rooms, these
seats are ‘perishable’, they must be filled
the same year. This should not affect next year’s
quota.’’
This sorry situation is the result of two major education
policies framed by the Centre. The government not only commissioned
six new IITs, but simultaneously increased the number of
quota seats (for which there are simply not enough eligible
applicants). Despite the cut-off percentage being lowered
in the name of affirmative action, the students have not
made the grade. The old IITs can fill some of the seats
with students from the preparatory course, but the new IITs
have nothing to fall back on.
IIT-Guwahati director Gautam Barua said that the institute
heads who are meeting later this month may ask the HRD ministry
to dereserve the unfilled quota seats. “There is no
time this year but we may try to seek permission to transfer
the vacant seats to the general category for next year,’’
said Barua.
The prospect of empty chairs in the classroom has disheartened
faculty members, many of whom echoed Saturday’s Times
View.
WASTING RESOURCES
IITs
across the country offer a total of 119 streams
Each IIT sets aside 15% of the seats for SC students, 7.5%
for students from the STs and, from this year, will reserve
9% of seats for OBCs (though the six new IITs have implemented
27% reservation for OBCs)
IIT-Bombay, for instance, has 64 seats in computer science
and engineering; 44 seats go to students from the general
category, six to OBCs (9% of 64), 10 to SCs (15% of 64)
and 4 to STs (7.5% of 64)
IITs release four merit lists, one for the general category
and three others for each reserved category. This year,
the cut-off mark for the general category was 180, for OBCs
173, and for both SCs and STs, 104
The OBC topper was ranked 27th overall, while the two who
were first among SCs and STs were ranked 166th and 429th
overall, respectively
Politics
before merit, says IIT top brass
“Every IIT seat has the potential to produce a Nandan
Nilekani or a Vinod Khosla,’’ said a senior
faculty from Kharagpur. “To allow even one seat to
go vacant is like crushing a million dreams and aspirations.’’
Another professor from IITBombay said that the empty-seat
syndrome while not new had been aggravated this year because
of the “unthinking way in which the HRD ministry merrily
commissioned half-a-dozen new institutes and expanded quota
seats without so much as a thought as to whether or not
reserved candidates would qualify’’.
Down the years, IIT deans have faced the brunt of political
interventions. When the first batch of IIT-Delhi students
graduated, 47 of the 53 reserved category students failed.
The dean was summoned. Recalling the meeting with the “big
fat man’’, education minister Nurul Hasan, P
V Indiresan said, “He kept his bulky hand on my shoulder
and asked me, ‘Professor, yeh kya kar diya?’
(Professor what have you done?)’’ Little has
changed. Only two months ago, IIT-Delhi was pulled up by
the Minorities Commission for asking 20 reserved students
to pack their bags because of “very poor performance’’.
These instances of political pressure though fairly common
rarely come out in the open. IIT heads who are accused of
casteism or deliberately failing reserved category students
prefer to stay silent. Most are reluctant to even broach
the topic of transferring vacant seats to the general pool,
said a former IIT director. “Any issue regarding reserved
students has a lot of political repercussions,’’
said Indiresan. “After all, these students have constitutional
protection.’’
According to a government report nearly 50% of the reserved
seats remain vacant. And of those who make it, 25% drop
out.
The situation in the next academic year is likely to be
even worse. This is because the six newbies do not have
the back-up preparatory course. This course, which is like
a feeder class, trains quota students for a year to equip
them to qualify for the IITs. IITMadras head M S Ananth
said that while filling SC and OBC seats is still manageable,
it is much more difficult when it comes to the tribal quota.
“Despite this, these seats cannot be de-reserved as
they were created as super-numeric seats over and above
the existing number so as to ensure that quotas did not
eat into the open category.’’
Ananth added that transferring seats was not encouraged—except
in the case of OBC quota—“because of the fear
that the IITs would try to fill them up with forward candidates.
It’s just that the government wants us to make enough
efforts to look for backward students. Hence, if unfilled,
the seats have to go vacant.’’
Old hands like Indiresan rue the fact that the government
is killing its golden goose for shortterm political profit.
“The reason the IITs are such a success is because
they enjoy three basic freedoms: freedom to choose whom
to teach, who will teach, and what to teach. These are now
endangered.’’
