Few Teachers And Poor Infrastructure: A Common Sight At Central Universities Across The Country

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has often underlined the need to change the curriculum followed in schools, colleges and universities. But, the Modi dispensation has ignored the poor infrastructure condition and vacant positions in most of the central universities.

There is a massive vacancy for permanent teachers in central universities of Orissa, Haryana, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. The infrastructural problems are also one of the top concerns for these universities.

Senior officials from some of these universities have told The Print that they cannot hire teachers as University Grants Commission’s (UGC) March 5 order changed the reservation counting system. The universities were asked to wait as the matter is in court now.

According to this order, reservation in faculty positions will be calculated department-wise, instead of being based on the total posts in a university.

Faculty Shortage

The Central University of Orissa has 83.65 per cent of faculty shortage which is the highest among the new central universities. The administration says this was due to some “uncalculated moves” in the past.

Vice-chancellor at Central University of Orissa, Sachidananda Mohanty said, “Departments were opened without hiring any faculty members. So now, I am not opening any new departments until the time I am able to hire faculty members.”

The Central University of Haryana has 75 per cent of teaching positions vacant. A senior official said, “We had already advertised for the posts and the process of filling up vacancies was almost done but it had to be put on hold (due to new UGC order).”

Central Universities at Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka have more than 60 per cent vacancies.

Registrar of the Central University of Karnataka said the university is managing with guest faculty in the absence of permanent ones. It is hiring faculty on a one-year contract with a salary of Rs 40,000 for non-PhDs and Rs 45,000 for PhD holders.

Infrastructure Issues

In January President Ram Nath Kovind had held a meeting of VCs of all the 17 new central universities to ensure vacancies were filled. VCs had informed him that infrastructure was a major issue.

At the Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari, Bihar, there are no landline phones due to its remote location, sources pointed out. No one wants to come to such a remote location to work, sources pointed out.

Out of 17 varsities which came to be after 2009, only five — Karnataka, Rajasthan, Haryana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu — have permanent buildings.

The central universities at Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and J&K haven’t even been allotted land by the respective state governments to build their campuses.

The Central University of Kashmir has been struggling to get a decent plot of land. One that was allotted to the varsity is marshy.

The central Universities in the various parts of the country were established (some only on paper) after the 2009 11th Five Year Plan. The then UPA government had approved the plan of setting up of one central university in each state that did not have one.

There were 16 varsities established by the Central Universities Act, 2009 in different states after that.