Empty chairs: 17,880 posts reserved for SCs lay unfilled in ten Central Government Ministries on 1 January 2021

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What this shows

How many posts reserved for SCs in the Central Government Ministries and Departments DoPT follows were carried forward unfilled, and how many had been filled, as on 1 January of each year from 2017 to 2021.

What it does not show: The backlog after 1 January 2021: DoPT collects it from the Ministries but has not published it since 2022, and its answers to the Lok Sabha since then give no figures.

Sources

Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Starred Question 130, “Vacant Posts of Reserved Categories”, Annexure, dated 19 Dec 2018. Primary source.
Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 5206, “Filling up of Reserved Vacancies in Different Departments”, Annexure, dated 24 Jul 2019. Primary source.
Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 395, “Reservations to SCs and STs”, Annexure, dated 3 Feb 2021. Primary source.
Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 461, “Special Recruitment Drive”, Annexure, dated 1 Dec 2021. Primary source.
Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2778, “Vacant Reserved Posts”, Annexure, dated 15 Dec 2021. Primary source.
Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 4378, “Vacancies in Central Government”, Annexure, dated 30 Mar 2022. Primary source.
Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 638, “Special Drive Recruitment”, Annexure, dated 20 Jul 2022. Primary source.
Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 352, “Backlog Vacancies for STs/SCs/OBCs” (gives no figures), dated 24 Jul 2024. Primary source.
Lok Sabha; answer by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 687, “Unfilled Posts Reserved for SC/ST/OBC” (gives no figures), dated 3 Dec 2025. Primary source.

Analysis by The Dalit Project, as on 9 Oct 2026.

Read these with the numbers

The latest Ministry-by-Ministry figures DoPT has published are as on 1 January 2021, given in Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 4378, 30 March 2022 and Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 638, 20 July 2022. Its answers since then (Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 352, 24 July 2024 and Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 687, 3 December 2025) give no figures for the backlog, though the later question asked for them Ministry by Ministry. DoPT collects the figures from the Ministries; the record not published since 2022 is that Ministry-by-Ministry backlog.
DoPT follows the backlog in ten Ministries and Departments which, its answers say, have more than 90% of Central Government employees. Not every answer covers all ten.
The figures are what the Ministries and Departments reported to DoPT. No answer gives the backlog by group of post (A, B, C), by office or for the whole of the Central Government.
In two rows of the 2021 table (Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Home Affairs), the unfilled count DoPT prints for SCs is not the backlog minus the posts filled, and the gap runs in opposite directions (Railways 4,445 printed, 3,358 worked out and Home Affairs 4,450 printed, 5,285 worked out). Every answer that prints the table gives the same figures, and no answer explains or corrects them. This page counts posts left unfilled as the backlog minus the posts filled, which is the printed count in every other row of every table; Exhibit 5 shows the printed counts beside it.
Two answers (Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 4378, 30 March 2022 and Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 638, 20 July 2022) are scans. Their text layers read Financial Services’s SC unfilled count as 674 and 6,741; the page images of both print 674, which is used.
Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 687, 3 December 2025, says “over 4.8 lakh” (480,000) backlog vacancies have been filled since 2016, with no split by category or Ministry. It is not shown on the charts.

Key terms

Backlog reserved vacancy: In DoPT’s words: vacancies “which were earmarked reserved for that category in an earlier recruitment year but remained unfilled in the previous recruitment attempt on account of non availability of suitable candidates belonging to that category and are still lying unfilled” (Brochure on reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs, 2014, para 4.4, Note 2). They are carried forward until filled by that category, and are not counted towards the 50% limit on reservation in the year they are filled (para 4.4; Article 16(4B) of the Constitution). A backlog is not the same as a shortfall in a cadre’s representation, which DoPT counts separately.
Special Recruitment Drive: A recruitment drive held to fill backlog reserved vacancies. DoPT’s answers say it has asked every Ministry to set up an In-House Committee to identify such vacancies and fill them through these drives.
DoPT: The Department of Personnel and Training, in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, which sets the rules on reservation in Central Government posts.
SC, ST, OBC: Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, the categories for which posts are reserved.

Changelog and corrections

Version 1: First version: 4 Ministry-by-Ministry tables and 4 yearly totals from 7 Lok Sabha answers, the latest as on 1 January 2021.

How corrections work. Every change is listed here.

Cite this

The Dalit Project, “Empty chairs: 17,880 posts reserved for SCs lay unfilled in ten Central Government Ministries on 1 January 2021”, version 1, data.dalitproject.org/reserved-backlog/, as on 9 Oct 2026.