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IIT-Kgp used rural location excuse

Charu Sudan Kasturi 

NEW DELHI : Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, used its `rural“ location to justify an illegal and secret quota it kept aside for staff wards for over four decades, twice rejecting calls from within the IIT community to scrap the reservation.

The quota was critical to retain teachers who other institutions -including other IITs -were trying to poach, the IIT Kharagpur Board of Governors (BoG) argued as justification, documents accessed by HT through the RTI Act reveal. HT had on Monday exposed how India's oldest IIT secretly blocked 25 per cent seats in its popular five-year science programmes for hand-picked nominees, even as others had cleared the IIT Joint Entrance Examination. At least one student beneficiary of this quota is at present a faculty member in the chemistry department at IIT Kharagpur.

The quota was started before the IIT-JEE was born in the mid-1960s and continued till 2005 when it was suspended and then abandoned the following year.

But the illegal quota was challenged internally by critics in 1988, and the IIT decided to phase out the illegal reservation -a decision it backtracked on. The IIT BoG decided on November 30, 1988 to ask the Institute Senate “to work out the modality for phasing out the existing BoG quota system for admission to 5 year science courses progressively“, meeting minutes show. The Senate consists of administrators and teachers.

But the IIT did not phase out the quota and was again challenged by others win the IIT community in 2003. However, the BoG decided -at its meeting on January 13, 2003 -to continue with the quota.

“IIT Kharagpur, being located in rural surroundings, deprives its faculty and staff of advantages that other IITs offer their employees such as good school and college facilities,“ the BoG argued. The Board said it was “because of this (that) a number of faculty left IIT Kharagpur and joined other institutions“.

The BoG also decided staff wards don't need to appear for IIT-JEE to benefit from the quota and authorised the Director and Senate to work out modalities for admissions to the quota.
(Courtesy : The Hindustan Times)

charu.kasturi@hindustantimes.com

 

 IIT-Kharagpur kept aside illegal quota for staff 

Charu Sudan Kasturi
NEW DELHI :
The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur was secretly -and illegally - keeping aside a discretionary admission quota for children of its teachers and staff for over four decades, admitting dozens of students to seats they failed to secure through the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination.

Documents accessed by HT using the RTI Act show the country's oldest IIT -started in 1951 -blocked 25 per cent of its seats in popular five-year integrated science courses (up to M.Sc level) for handpicked nominees, even as students from the rest of India had to clear the IIT-JEE for admission.

IIT wards merely needed 60 per cent marks in their Class XII Board examination and should have appeared in the IIT-JEE to be eligible for the quota seats, doled out at the institute director's discretion.

Between 2003 and 2005, those who got in through this illegal quota didn't even need to appear for the entrance exam.

The secret quota was suspended in 2005, the year the RTI Act was launched, and was abandoned in 2006 under pressure from the Joint Admission Board of all IITs, which organises the entrance examination.

“This was the most shameful chapter in the history of the IITs. I tried convincing colleagues to end the quota, but failed," said a former IIT Kharagpur director who was in charge for several years when the quota was in place.

The IIT admitted 88 students through the secret quota between 1998 and 2005, including 50 in 2003 and 2004, documents reveal. The quota was never disclosed in admission brochures -unlike all other reservations for backward communities that the IITs have.

The beneficiaries of the secret quota include the children of Madhusudan Chakraborty, now the Director of IIT Bhubaneswar and VK Tewari, the organising chairman of the IIT-JEE in 2006. Chakraborty, who has also been deputy director of IIT Kharagpur, confirmed the discretionary quota to HT but argued: “Not only my son, the sons and daughters of many others in the faculty were also admitted through this quota.“

The IIT has not disclosed exactly when the quota was started, but minutes of an August 16, 1988 board of governors meeting reveal that the quota existed even before the IIT-JEE was started in the mid-1960s.
(Courtesy : The Hindustan Times)

charu.kasturi@hindustantimes.com

 

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