According to the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry, the engineering institutions of the country including the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are facing a massive shortage of teaching staff. About 2813 positions are lying vacant in the IITs, while about 3211 posts are yet to be filled in the NITs.
In March last year too, the country’s 23 IITs had together reported a shortage of faculty of 34 per cent. That is when the HRD Ministry had announced that it would take steps to ensure that the IITs easily acquire visas for foreign faculty.
The shortage wasn’t restricted to just the newer IITs, such as the ones in Palakkad, Tirupati and Goa, but also affected the older institutes at Mumbai, Kharagpur and Kanpur.
Presently, these autonomous institutions have been asked by the Government to go for special recruitment drives to fill these positions.
Although almost 8,856 positions have been allocated to teaching jobs in the 23 IIT centres across the country, only 6043 vacancies have been filled so far. More than 2800 jobs remain vacant, of which 170 are reserved for the scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST).
At the NIT campuses also, of the 7413 sanctioned teaching posts, only about 3,211 have been filled as of now.
It is not only a shortage of teaching staff that is an issue. These institutes lack non-teaching staff too. Many vacancies exist in the administrative department. Out of a total of 8,163 adminsitrative posts, 4,346 positions remain vacant.
