New Delhi: Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) faculty members remain few at IIT Bombay despite a special recruitment
drive, according to Right to Information (RTI) data accessed by Hindustan Times.
Of the institute’s 412 professors as of September, five belonged to the SC community and six to the OBC category. None belonged to the ST community. At the associate and assistant professor levels, 29 faculty members were SC, eight were ST and 35 were OBC out of a total of 363.
The RTI response also showed that 450 of IIT Bombay’s 1,225 approved teaching posts were vacant.
Small change since February
Gowd Kiran Kumar, chairperson of the All India OBC Students Association, filed the RTI request. An earlier response he received in February listed 33 SC faculty members across the three teaching ranks. It listed eight ST faculty members and 41 OBC faculty members.
The latest figures put the SC total at 34, an increase of one. The ST total remained eight, while the OBC total remained 41.
“The September data shows that the number of SC faculty members has increased by only one since the February RTI response,” Kumar said. He argued that low representation raised questions about how institutions address discrimination faced by students and researchers from these communities.
Alumni member urges context
Dheeraj Singh, an IIT Kanpur alumnus and member of the Global IIT Alumni Support Group, said about 90 per cent of IIT Bombay’s faculty belonged to the general category. He put OBC representation at around five per cent and the combined SC and ST share at around five per cent.
“The figures alone do not show that any particular faculty member has acted with caste bias,” Singh said. He said the data offered context for discussions about representation and fairness.
Earlier recruitment figures
Faculty diversity at IITs drew greater attention after the death of first-year IIT Bombay student Darshan Solanki in 2023. The Union government subsequently asked IITs to hold special recruitment drives for SC and ST faculty.
A separate RTI response obtained by the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle showed that IIT Bombay selected four of around 523 SC faculty applicants in 2023. It selected no ST or OBC applicant that year. In 2024, it selected two SC applicants out of 44, one ST applicant out of 22 and three OBC applicants out of 106.
