The Centre has set a deadline of one year for the centrally funded higher educational institutions to fill the different teaching positions which are lying vacant, especially in the reserved categories, on a mission mode from this Teacher’s Day. It has asked the institutions to send a monthly action taken report to the union ministry of education (MoE) on the same from September 2021. The ministry in its letter on Tuesday to the Central Higher Education Institutions (CHEls) has asked the institutions to complete the process by September 4, 2022, and submit an action taken report on the same.

The TOI on July 24 and 31, 2021 reported that 15 of 44 central universities, including Delhi University, have over 40% of sanctioned teaching positions vacant. The University of Allahabad and the Central University of Odisha have over 70% vacancies in teaching positions. As per government data over 6,000 of the 18,911 sanctioned teaching positions in central universities are lying vacant. In the reserved categories, while over 55% of the sanctioned OBC posts in the 45 central universities and other technical and research organisations are lying vacant, 41% of the SC posts and 39% of the ST posts are also lying vacant in these institutions.

In his letter to the heads of the CHEIs, Amit Khare, secretary, higher education, ministry of education, wrote, “I am writing in connection with the faculty positions that are lying vacant, especially in the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and EWS category in the Central Higher Education Institutions (CHEls) functioning under the administrative control of the Ministry of Education. In order to clear this backlog, it has been decided that all CHEls should fill these vacancies in a Mission Mode within a period of one year starting from September 5, 2021, to September 4, 2022, and to report about the action taken and progress made in this regard through the following mechanism…”

According to the MoE's data, Delhi University has the highest number of vacancies, with 846 of 1,706 sanctioned posts still open. The University of Allahabad has 598 of its 863 teaching posts lying vacant. The data indicated that over 50% of central universities (23 of 44) have over 30% vacancies.

Directing all the institutions to strictly comply with the instructions and to undertake a special drive “to fill backlog vacancies in their institutions on Mission Mode,” the MoE instructed the institutions to “Include a separate chapter in their Annual Report (starting from 2021-22) depicting the status of filling up of backlog vacancies in the tabular format during the year; Include an agenda item in every Finance Committee/ Board of Governors/ Board of Management meeting, giving the status of filling up of backlog vacancies and heads of all CHEls will send a monthly report to secretary (higher education) (starting from September 2021) appraising the status of action taken.”