NEW DELHI: Days after a parliamentary panel quizzed the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry over poor implementation of the reservation policy in faculty recruitment, the Union government has asked all central educational institutes, including IITs and IIMs , to ensure faculty hirings as per the quota policy.While central universities mostly implement the faculty quota — 15% for Scheduled Castes, 7.5%for Scheduled Tribes, 27% for Other Backward Classes and 10% for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) — IITs and IIMs largely do not do so.Both IITs and IIMs have a very poor representation of reserved category persons in faculty, as per government data.The HRD ministry wrote to all institutes last week to ensure implementation of of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act .A separate communication has been sent to all IIMs today to ensure ‘reservation of posts in direct recruitment’ considering the institute as a unit—as specified in the Act that came into effect on March 7, 2019.The new Act asks all institutes to ensure direct recruitment of faculty by clubbing vacant posts of the same rank across all departments. A roster detailing the same with the quota seats is to be prepared and recruitment has to be done accordingly.The IIMs have been asked to ensure that ‘the rosters are made’ and further recruitment be done as per the roster. The ministry order further states that it supersedes all previous orders from the ministry to the IIMs on faculty reservations.The IIMs have so far been following the 1975 order of the Department of Personnel & Training that exempted scientific and technical posts from the reservation policy. IIM Ahmedabad is also caught in a court battle on the issue in the high court.The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Welfare of SC and STs has held two meetings with the HRD ministry this month on implementation of reservations- both in faculty recruitment and in student admissions across several central educational institutes.The ministry communications on the quota issue are learnt to have followed from the same meeting.