'False' promise about third AMU campus at Seemanchal in 2010: Dharmendra Pradhan

NEW DELHI: Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has only two centres -- Malappuram and Murshidabad -- in the country and a "false" promise has been made in 2010 about a third campus at Kishanganj in Bihar.

Pradhan said in Lok Sabha that a "false" promise was made in 2010 about an AMU centre in the Seemanchal region of Bihar saying it would be located at Kishanganj, without undertaking any necessary study and paperwork. "I have made an enquiry (in the education ministry) and no paper has been found related to the Seemanchal centre of the AMU.

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There was no proposal. Whoever had made the statement in 2010 about the Seemanchal centre, it was a complete lie," he said, inviting a sharp reaction from Congress leader, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Chowdhury protested Pradhan's comments, apparently due to the fact that in 2010 the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre. The minister said AMU is an autonomous institution and it has just two centres in the country -- Malappuram in Kerala and Murshidabad in West Bengal.

Referring to the appointment of faculty members in central universities and other higher education institutions, Pradhan said out of 18,956 sanctioned teaching posts in 45 central universities in the regular mode under the purview of the ministry of education, 12,776 posts are filled up and 6,180 posts are vacant as on December 1, 2022.

The ministry of education has also directed all higher education institutions to fill up the vacancies in a mission mode, he said. The minister said about 2,000 posts of professors, associate professors and assistant professors have been filled up in the last one year.