The IIT Joint Admission Board (JAB), after a marathon meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday on the issue of vacant SC/ST seats, refused to compromise on merit despite pressure from the Human Resource Development Ministry (HRD) and announced that it would not hold preparatory classes for the six new IITs as had been ‘advised’ by the Ministry last week . The JAB has ruled against this re-allocation of seats despite ministry pressure citing logistics-related problems and has said that it will instead 'carry forward' the 66 vacant SC/ST seats in new IITs on to the next academic session. The ministry, according to JAB members, is said to have arrived at a consensus with the IIT directors on the issue considering serious infrastructure problems this would entail.“Taking into account various factors like infrastructure, classrooms, faculty and implementation problems, the JAB decided that the preparatory courses for the new IITs will start with Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) 2009. Furthermore, the vacancies of SC/STs of JEE 2008 in the six new IITs shall be made available for the admission exercise of 2009 in the six new IITs as one-time measure," said the JAB official statement.“The same philosophy shall be applicable to IT-BHU and ISM, Dhanbad. The policy for JAB 2009 shall be finalised in the JAB meeting scheduled to be held at IIT Kharagpur on August 24, 2008,” it added.Prof S G Dhande, Director of IIT Kanpur and acting director of under mentoring IIT Rajasthan, said that with the 66 vacant seats being ‘carried forward’ there would be no net wastage of seats.“While 100 per cent seats have been filled in the existing seven IITs, in the six new IITs, 66 of the 700 seats are vacant this year. Rather than preparatory courses this year for them, we will do it next year when the new IITs are better placed in terms of faculty and infrastructure,” said Prof S G Dhande.While all IIT directors and directors of IT-BHU and ISM Dhanbad were present at the JAB meeting, the ministry was represented by Additional Secretary Ashok Thakur and Director Seema Raj. While the ministry is said to have expressed concern about seats falling vacant, the IIT directors explained to them how filling these seats and conducting preparatory courses at this stage would cause major infrastructure and seat allocation issues.“The ministry had concerns about these coveted seats going vacant and we understand that fully. However, we explained to them how we had already started preparatory classes for the existing seven IITs and were just about managing the six new IITs — some functioning jointly with older IITs on their campus and others on temporary campuses elsewhere. So to start preparatory courses for new IITs would mean that JEE would have to put out notices, reallocate these 66 seats to students for all IITs. Some would also have to shift from one campus to another.When the ministry officials were told what the move would entail, they agreed that it should be rolled out next year instead,” said Gautam Barua, director of IIT Guwahati who is the acting director of the under mentoring IIT Patna.
