Quota chaos in lecturer posts

KOLKATA: More than 800 posts of college teachers, reserved for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, have been lying vacant in the state for five years.
The West Bengal College Service Commission has now advised the colleges to apply to the state government for de-reservation of the posts.
"We have general category candidates for each of these vacancies, but they cannot be appointed as the posts are reserved for SC/ST.For the past five years, we have been turning down the requisition from colleges because of this problem. At the same time, we are not able to give appointment to candidates on our panel," said CSC chairman A K Banik.
According to state norms, 22 per cent of the posts in a college should be reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates, six per cent for Scheduled Tribes and five per cent for OBCs.
Some of the worst-affected colleges in the city are Vidyasagar College, Surendranath College, Acharya Prafulla Chandra College, South Calcutta Girls'' College, Women''s College, Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama Colleges at Narendrapur and Belur, Ashutosh College, Motijheel College, Rashtraguru Surendranath College and Barasat College.
"We have sent letters to these colleges advising them to apply to the backward classes welfare department for de-reservation of these posts. There is no point keeping these seats reserved when the Commission is not getting SC/ST candidates for these subjects for the past five years. It is not as if we are depriving SC/ST candidates while providing opportunity to others," Banik said.
The vacancies are mostly in Bengali, geography, economics, chemistry, physics, molecular biology, microbiology, sociology, journalism and anthropology, according to Commission records.
The colleges have started approaching the department.
"While some colleges have already approached us for de-reservation, it will take some time before we grant it," said joint commissioner of the department, Chandi Raychaudhuri.