SC/ST cells at 16 IITs exist only for namesake: RTI data

Of the 19 cells, 18 have no funds allocated and 16 have not conducted any events since August 2022. The information has come to the fore in response to a RTI plea filed by the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), a student association at IIT Bombay. 

Sixteen out of the 19 SC/ST cells at various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are non-functional, reveals data obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, Hindustan Times reported. 

Four IITs do not have SC/ST cells. Of the 19 cells, 18 have no funds allocated and 16 have not conducted any events since August 2022. As many as 12 cells have no room allotted for meetings and discussions and 10 of them do not have information about the reservation or a mechanism to check the quota implementation, the RTI application, filed by Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), has found. 

Though the Centre claims that 19 of the 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have dedicated cells for the welfare of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) students, 16 of them are non-functional, data obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed.  

Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), a students’ association based at IIT Bombay, has demanded action against directors of these institutes through a social media post that has tagged Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Kirit Solanki, chairman, Parliamentary Committee for SC/ST Welfare, the report said. 

IITs that don’t have SC/ST cells 

Four institutes - IIT BHU, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Mandi, and IIT (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad – do not have SC/ST cells. Further, of the 19 cells, 18 have no funds allocated, and 16 have not conducted any events since August 2022. As many as 12 cells have no room allotted for meetings and discussions and 10 of them - IIT Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Tirupati, Goa, Hyderabad, Ropar, Patna, and Jammu - do not have information about the reservation or a mechanism to check the quota implementation, the RTI application, filed by APPSC, has found. 

“None of the cells explicitly mention that the reservation is under their purview. Only IIT Bhubaneswar and Delhi mention the quota on their websites,” a member of APPSC said. While five IITs have mentioned the SC-ST cells on their main webpages, IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay have maintained separate websites. 

“While ST/SC cells are only on paper, the education ministry should make sure that all IITs implement the UGC guidelines and set up anti-discrimination cells, implement the reservation properly, and conduct sensitisation events,” the social media post by APPSC read. 

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