Indian Institutes of Technology and central universities filled just above 30% of faculty positions reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes between September 2021 and September 2022, The Hindu reported on Wednesday.

The data was presented before the Lok Sabha on December 19 by Union Minister of State for Education Annapurna Devi in response to a question by Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP S Venkatesan.

Twenty-three IITs and 45 central universities had been told to carry out recruitment on mission mode from September 5, 2021, to September 5, 2022, in order to fill vacancies in teaching positions reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.

An analysis by the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle showed that during this period, 1,439 vacancies were identified but only 449 persons were recruited.

Out of the 45 central universities, 33 had identified 1,097 vacancies in the three categories. However, only 212 positions were filled. Of these 33 universities, 18 did not recruit any teaching faculty members belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes although they had identified vacancies, according to The Hindu.

Among these 18 universities were the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, the Banaras Hindu University and the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow.

Meanwhile, out of the 23 IITs, 19 institutes filled 237 vacancies in the categories of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. The three IITs that did not fill any teaching vacancies in these categories were the ones located at Hyderabad, Bhilai and Bhubaneswar.

At the end of the recruitment exercise, there were 358 vacancies in 14 IITs, according to the analysis.