The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has not made any provision to implement reservations for historically marginalised social groups in its 2020 Ph.D Programme in Management. When the premier management institute opened its admissions portal for next year’s doctoral programme last week, it had no provisions for an SC/ST (Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe) quota.

Some IIM staff and alumni have called out the institution on its continued refusal to comply with the law that requires all Central educational institutions to reserve seats for each course and branch of study. “The IIM Act, 2017, which gave unprecedented autonomy to the IIMs and enabled them to grant the Ph.D degree in the first place, also makes it explicitly clear that they must comply with the provisions of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006,” said Siddharth Joshi, an IIM-B alumni who wrote an open letter to IIM-A director Errol D’Souza on the issue on Wednesday, along with IIM-B professor Deepak Malghan.

The pair have published a research report showing that there are hardly any IIM faculty from the SC and ST communities. “Out of 500 faculty [across IIMs], only four or five were SC/ST. One-third of IIM faculty are graduates of the IIM’s own doctoral programme. Unless there is reservation in the Ph.D programme, it will be difficult to address the unconscionable diversity deficit of IIM faculty,” said Mr. Joshi.

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