Arun Halder, vice-chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes, visited IIT Madras on Monday and held discussions with its director and other officials.
While the visit came in the backdrop of the recent allegation of discrimination by a faculty member, sources in the NCSC said it was part of a routine inspection of institutions. However, they acknowledged that the issues of reservation and discrimination figured prominently at the discussion.
Addressing the media later in the day, Mr. Halder said the discussion was satisfactory and the IIT Director and other officials assured him that there was no discrimination. He said that on certain complaints submitted through the NCSC, the administration was asked to submit an action-taken report within 30 days in keeping with the NCSC norms.
Sources privy to the meeting said the non-implementation of reservation in the recruitment of faculty members was discussed and NCSC officials urged the administration to take steps to fill the vacancies in accordance with the reservation policy.
Mr. Halder highlighted that, for the first time, representatives of the IIT Madras SC/ ST Employees’ Welfare Association attended the meeting. Representatives of the association stressed the need for implementing reservation in recruitment and measures to ensure efficient functioning of the SC/ST Cell on the campus.
Members of ChintaBar, a students’ collective, met the vice-chairman and presented a memorandum that highlighted the poor representation of SC/ST students in the enrolment for MS and Ph.D. programmes. They made a series of demands, including strict adherence to reservation in admission to MS and Ph.D. programmes, transparency in the declaration of category-wise details of vacancies in and admissions to each department, increasing the scholarship given to SC/ST students, strengthening of the SC/ST and Other Backward Class cells on the campus, and conducting a study of the mental health-related issues and other difficulties faced by students, particularly those from the marginalised communities.
S. Karuppiah, general secretary of the Dalit Liberation Movement-Tamil Nadu, met the vice-chairman earlier in the day at the NCSC office here and submitted a representation demanding measures to implement the reservation policy in the faculty recruitment at the IIT.
