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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 |
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IIT-Kharagpur
kept aside illegal quota for staff |
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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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