Nine IIM’s Accused of Violating PhD Reservation Norms; Check Details Here


New Delhi: Nine IIMs have been detected to have violated the reservation of seats norms during PhD Admission for the students of SC, ST & OBC categories in the last 5 years.

This has come to notice while going through the data obtained by a RTI filed by the students’ collective, Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) IIT Bombay.

Out of the 20 IIMs, only 15 extend reservations in PhD programmes for candidates from SC, ST and OBC communities.

According to the reservation norms in regard to PhD admission in IIMs, 27% of the seats are reserved for NC-OBC, 15% for SC, 7.5% for ST candidates, 5% for Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwD), and up to 10% for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).But the data revealed that only 40 SC, 13 ST and 123 OBC students were admitted in the IIMs between 2018 to 2022.

Across nine IIMs, only 5.4 percent SC students, 1.8 percent ST and 16.7 percent OBC students got admission. A majority of 76.1 percent students belonged to the general category which includes EWS students.

The data for the year 2021 show how casteism and social exclusion have become deeply ingrained in IITs as well. In IITs at Kharagpur, Indore, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Tirupati, Mandi, and Bhubaneswar, general category students mostly come from upper castes, who formed 51.8%, 41.2%, 52.7%, 49.9%, 42.1%, 43.1% and 47.9% of the total applications, respectively. 

IIT Bhilai has not accepted PhD applicants from SC and ST communities despite receiving 10.9% and 1.6% applications from the two most marginalized communities of the society. 

Read More:

Subscribe to Collegedunia to get the latest educational news and updates –