UGC launches unified recruitment portal 'CU-Chayan' for central universities faculty appointments

NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission has launched a unified recruitment portal called 'CU-Chayan' for faculty appointments in central universities, its chairman Jagadesh Kumar said on Tuesday.

"The portal is completely user-friendly and caters to the needs of all stakeholders in the recruitment process. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has developed this portal to create an enabling environment for both, universities and the applicants, with universities driving all the stages of the recruitment independently as is being done at present in the respective university," he said.

Also Read | UGC extends MOOCs, coaching, fellowship, scholarship, other schemes till March 31 next year

Kumar explained that for applicants, the platform will offer a range of features, including a consolidated listing of job openings across all participating universities, a single login for applying to any of the universities, and personalised dashboards to help manage the application process. "The applicant can also search for jobs using various filters like university name, location, designation, category, subject, type of employment, experience, education level, among others. From the applicants perspective, they will be able to access the faculty application process of any central university from this single portal.

"They can keep updating their application from the personalised dashboard for each applicant and transfer this application to any CU (central university) which has advertised faculty positions. Registered applicants will also get an auto e-mail informing about the new vacancies advertised by any CU. This portal is only for the faculty vacancies arising in all CUs," he said.

While the current recruitments for which advertisements have already been issued will go on without using the portal, all future recruitments will take place on this portal. The commission has also asked all CUs to de-activate their recruitment portal. The UGC chief explained that the commission will be maintaining this portal for the benefit of all the CUs and is not a centralised recruitment process for all central universities. "All CUs will continue to have their autonomy in the recruitment process and all the recruitments will be done by the respective universities," he said.

Also Read | ABVP meets UGC chairman, demands ‘common counselling’ for admissions through CUET-UG

The universities will continue the practice of issuing advertisement in newspapers and give a link to CU-Chayan portal to see the detailed advertisement. "The CU-Chayan portal has been developed in consultation with the VCs (vice chancellors) of all CUs. Their feedback and inputs have been incorporated. Changes can be incorporated in the portal to customise to take care of the specific needs of any CU. UGC will also provide training to CUs in using this portal," Kumar said. For universities, the platform will provide real-time tracking of applications, customised admin dashboards, and configurable advertisement rules.

It also enables a completely online process, including payment gateways, from initial application to screening, and includes built-in e-mail communication tools and online feedback and reference options for referees. "The platform provides real-time analysis and insights into the application process.

The screening committee of the university can view details of the applicants, points and research scores given by the system, and check the uploaded document against each entry. Points and comments of the screening panel can also be recorded in the portal itself," he said.

Also Read | ‘Doesn’t apply to full-time, offline courses’: NMIMS on UGC barring ODL, online programmes

According to statistics shared by the Ministry of Education in Parliament in March, over 11,000 teaching posts are vacant in central higher education institutes. The University of Delhi (DU), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kharagpur and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Tiruchirappalli have the maximum number of teaching staff vacancies among central universities, the IITs and IIMs.

There are 45 central universities, 23 IITs and 20 IIMs in the country. The data showed that DU has 792 of 1,706 teaching positions vacant, while IIT-Kharagpur has 819 of 1,526 positions vacant, and IIM-Tiruchirappalli has 51 of 94 positions vacant.