Over 10,000 faculty positions are vacant across the central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), education minister Dharmendra Pradhan told the Parliament Wednesday.

Of the total 10,814 vacancies, 6,535 are in the central universities including IGNOU, 403 are in IIMs and 3,876 are in IITs, the minister said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

According to the UGC, there are 54 central universities in the country. The government, in a written response, had informed the Parliament during the Monsoon session that the vacancies in the central universities account for 40 per cent of total teaching positions.

The institutes also fare poorly in representation of members of the SC, ST and OBC communities in teaching roles. In the central universities, 1,015 SC faculty positions, 590 ST and 1,767 OBC posts are vacant. The IITs collectively have 32 ST, 183 SCs and 462 OBC faculty. The corresponding figures are 5, 27 and 45 for IIMs. The Constitution mandates that in educational institutes, at least 7.5 per cent teaching positions are occupied by STs, 15 per cent by SCs and 27 per cent by OBCs.