IIMs yet to complete faculty reservation rosters nearly a year after centre’s directive

Nearly a year after the education ministry asked Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to prepare and submit reservation rosters for faculty and non-teaching positions, several premier management institutes were still in the process of completing the exercise, according to official documents accessed by HT.

At the first Coordination Forum of IIMs meeting in September 2025, officials flagged “inherent challenges” in implementing the reservation roster, saying it was “difficult to find suitable candidates.”

By the second meeting on May 14, 2026, the ministry said that category-wise sanctioned-position details were still awaited from eight IIMs — Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Ranchi, Rohtak, Udaipur and Mumbai — while draft rosters were pending from 10, including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Raipur, Ranchi, Rohtak, Udaipur, Nagpur and Sambalpur. This was despite the ministry noting that such information is “frequently sought in Parliament, often five to six times in each session.”

There are 22 IIMs in the country. Under the Indian Institute of Management Act, 2017, the forum is an “advisory body”, unlike the IIT Council, whose decisions are binding on IITs. The education ministry circulated the minutes to IIMs on June 17, and HT obtained them through a Right to Information (RTI) application last month.

The ministry first discussed implementing reservation policies at the forum’s September 23, 2025 meeting, when it asked all IIMs to prepare their rosters and share them with the ministry’s nodal officer.

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The May 2026 minutes record that ministry officials pointed out that several IIMs are yet to share category-wise sanctioned-position details while proposing “mandatory structured training” for IIM liaison officers responsible for reservation implementation.

The forum discussed using post-doctoral fellowships to expand the pool of eligible candidates. “Potential candidates may be identified and initially encouraged to join the Institute as Post Doctoral Fellow (PDF), so that they can be groomed during the period of fellowship as faculty,” the minutes said.

Members also suggested supporting candidates from reserved categories at newer IIMs through training and scholarships during the period before they become qualified faculty.

The IIM forum also discussed faculty mobility between institutes. The minutes said newer IIMs faced a shortage of experienced and senior faculty while older institutes had a relatively larger pool. It suggested that IIMs collectively evolve a policy allowing newer institutes to temporarily engage senior faculty from older IIMs.

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Data obtained through RTI applications by Kiran Kumar Gowd, president of the All India OBC Students Association, provides a separate indication of the extent of vacancies in reserved faculty positions. Responses from nine IIMs — Calcutta, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Amritsar, Jammu, Raipur, Sambalpur, Sirmaur and Visakhapatnam — showed that 58.6% of sanctioned OBC faculty positions, 55.9% of SC positions, 79.6% of ST positions and 77.6% of EWS positions were vacant.

IIM directors have pointed to the availability of qualified candidates as a key challenge. IIM Indore director Prof Himanshu Rai: “The long-term solution involved encouraging more students from under-represented categories to pursue doctoral studies and expanding post-doctoral training, mentoring and faculty-development programmes.”

IIM Lucknow director Prof MP Gupta said reservation policies had to be implemented, but added that vacancies could persist when suitable candidates were not available. “There is no benefit to any institution in keeping faculty positions vacant,” he said.