Over 41% posts lying vacant in 45 central universities

The union government has stated that there are around 41 per cent of total sanctioned posts vacant in Central Universities. In the 45 central universities, there are 54,512 sanctioned posts as of 1 July 2023, but only 22,412 posts have been filled.

In response to questions asked by CPI(M) John Brittas, the minister of education Dharmendra Pradhan stated that Central Universities have been directed to fill up vacancies as and when arising. The onus of filling up the posts lies on the Central Universities (CUs) which are autonomous bodies created under Acts of Parliament. Pradhan also pointed out that through special recruitment drive, 6,087 posts have been filled up so far by the Central Universities as per the DoPT Mission Recruitment Portal.

The DoPT Mission Recruitment Portal is an IT enabled Management Information System with the objective to track the status of vacancies in different ministries within the union government.

The minister, in his response, had also stated that the union government had spent Rs 11,288.56 crore in 2022-23 for the 45 Central Universities, Rs 8960.94 crore in 2021-23 and Rs 8639.08 crore in 2020-21.

A few days ago on August 2, 2023, the Minister of State for Education Dr Subhas Sarkar said that there were 5,825 teaching posts lying vacant in 45 Central Universities, of which more than half are in reserved categories in response to questions asked CPI(M) MP AA Rahim.

Out of the 5,825 vacant teaching positions, 861 positions were for SC, 516 for ST, and 1,705 for the OBC categories. In the general category, there were 1,662 vacancies. These vacant posts were for professors, associate professors and assistant professors.

Last year, the government had revealed that there were 9.79 lakh vacancies in the ministries and 3,393 in the bureaucracy. Of the 3,393 vacancies, there were 1,472 vacant posts in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), while it was 864 in the Indian Police Service and 1,057 in Indian Forest Service.