Recently, on September 22, 2016, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment released Rs 1,08,95,000 for the construction of a hostel for OBC students at the Indian Institute of Technology, Indore (IIT-I). Some published sources speculated that IIT-I will now have a reservation system in hostels as well. PaGaLGuY spoke to Prof Nirmala Menon, Faculty Media Coordinator at IIT-I, to clarify the rumour.

Prof Menon, said, “We are a new IIT. We are still setting up and these extra funds will enable us to build one more hostel based on the increasing number of student intake. However, there will be no separate hostel for OBC students.”

While commenting about constructing a separate hostel for reserved category students, she continued, “There is no question of constructing a separate hostel for OBC students; it will be discrimination against those students. It is the institute’s standard policy that we do not discriminate between our students.”

The Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Thawar Chand Gehlot, routinely  announces the release of funds through the Ministry’s Facebook timeline. Like every year, this year as well the Ministry allocated funds, scholarships etc to various educational establishments, for the betterment of reserved category students around the country.

Prof Menon also mentioned that though Gehlot has released some funds to IIT-I, it is the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) which allocates funds to the institute.