Representation of STs going down in govt jobs & academic posts, reveals rights body

The central universities discriminate the most against Scheduled Tribes (STs), who were a deprived social group in government employment, a human rights body said today. Satya Prakash reports.

The central universities discriminate the most against Scheduled Tribes (STs), who were a deprived social group in government employment, a human rights body said on Wednesday.



In its report, “India’s Unfinished Agenda for Inclusion: A study on denial of reservation to the tribals in the government services and posts”, Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) said STs were the most deprived in the government employment.

“As of 8 May 2013, the maximum number of backlog vacancies with the Central Government was 12,195 posts for the STs, followed by 8,332 posts for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and 6,961 posts for the Scheduled Castes (SCs),” ACHR stated in its report released on Wednesday.

As per the National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 4,40,691 crimes were committed against SCs and STs during 2001-12 i.e. at least 101 crimes every day, it said.

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Quoting information provided by the University Grants Commission (UGC) under the Right to Information Act, ACHR said the representation of the STs in the post of professors has come down from 3.88% (46 STs against total of 1,187 professors) in 2006-07 to 0.24% (4 STs against total sanctioned posts of 1,667 professors) in 2010-11.



Similarly, STs’ representation in the post of Readers has decreased from 1.03% (18 STs against total of 1,744 Readers) in 2006-2007 to 0.32% (10 STs against total sanctioned posts of 3,155 Readers) in 2010-11.



In the category of Lecturers too, their representation witnessed a downward trend. It came down from 4.43% (129 STs against total of 2,914 Lecturers) in 2006-07 to 3.63% (193 STs against total posts of 5,317) in 2010-11, the report stated.



"The data provided by the UGC show that India’s higher educational institutions remain the most casteist, possibly a reflection of the opposition to the reservation policy." – ACHR Director Suhas Chakma said.



There was better representation of the STs in the top echelons of the Central Government than in the Central universities, the report noted.



"During 2010-11, at the level of the Secretary to the Central Government, the representation of the STs was 2.68% while representation of the STs at the level of Professor in the Central Universities was mere 0.24%.

During the same period, at the level of the Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary to the Government of India, the combined representation of the STs was 2.5% while the representation of the STs at the level of Readers in the Central Universities was mere 0.32%,” it stated.

“The posts in the reserved seats are kept vacant for certain years, and later dereserved on the ground of public interest as “no suitable candidates found” even if many ST and other reserved category candidates meet all the eligibility criteria for the specific posts,” the ACHR said demanding reversal of this policy.