Close to 7,000 posts for SC, ST, OBCs vacant in central universities: Education Ministry

NEW DELHI: The education ministry informed parliament on Monday that 6,988 teaching and non-teaching posts are vacant across central universities of India. Sukanta Majumdar, minister of state for education responded to an unstarred question in Lok Sabha. Dharmendar Yadav, member of parliament from Samajwadi Party, representing Badaun, asked the question. The data is from April 1, 2024.

A total of 2,202 posts for scheduled castes, 1,380 for scheduled tribes, and 3,406 for other backward classes are vacant in central universities.

Central University: Vacant posts

Till April last year, 5,825 teaching and 15,390 non-teaching posts were lying vacant in the central universities.

A total of 6,049 vacancies have been filled up by central universities (CUs), Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) and Indian Institutes of Information and Technology (IIIT) collectively till February 2024, the education minister also told parliament. The data was shared in response to a question by Indian National Congress’ Tanuj Punia, MP from Barabanki constituency in Bihar. BJP’s Majumdar also informed that of these, 9,535 faculty positions – including 1,173 SC, 517 ST and 1,942 OBC – have been filled “in mission mode”.

He also added, “Through special recruitment drives more than 9,650 positions (teaching and non-teaching) have been filled out of which 1,281 positions have been filled by SCs, 634 STs and 2,011 by OBCs.”

Last year, a parliamentary panel had pointed out that the ministry of education had 27,000 vacancies across central higher education which are yet to be filled. The vacancies included both teaching and non-teaching staff across central universities, IITs, IIITs, IIMs, IISERs and Indian Institute of Science.