PROTEST IN UoH AGAINST ‘ANTI-QUOTA’

A massive rally of SC, ST and OBC professors and the student Joint Action Committee was taken out at University of Hyderabad on Thursday in protest against the UGC decision to implement the new roster system which would reduce the reservation quota.

SC/ST Faculty Forum member Sreepati Ramudu said, “The UGC order of new roster will abolish the reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs and we are trying to uphold the sanctity of the Constitution and to protect the rights of SC/ST/OBC faculty.”

The existing education policy granted roster points allotted at university level, treating the university as a single unit. However, the new policy would treat individual departments as units and provide roster points at departmental level.

The new MHRD policy had outsourced the responsibility of diverse hiring on the departments themselves. Departmental vacancies were usually in small numbers and would bring down the number of SC/ST/OBC faculty, protesters said. They claimed that many small departments would never get reserved positions.

The protest also raised the demand for an inclusive and comprehensive reservation policy in universities so that marginalised groups had adequate representation in the staff room.

Save Education Society member Swati Reddy said, “When single vacancies arise, how can quota be decided? How do you draw up the candidate chart? There needs to be more thought into the implementation of this rule. Though there is a dire need to fill vacancies, especially from people belonging to quotas, their fair chance must also not be taken away.”