As much as 36 per cent of sanctioned posts of faculty members are vacant across eight prominent Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), a reply under the Right to Information has revealed.
The IITs of Mumbai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Chennai, Roorkee and Varanasi currently have 65,824 students, but only 4,049 teachers against 6,318 approved posts. Thus, with 2,269 vacancies, these IITs currently have one teacher for every 16 students.
The information was given by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry in response to a query by Neemuch-based RTI activist Chandrashekhar Gaud.
IIT (BHU) Varanasi, where 5,485 students are enrolled, has the worst shortfall, the reply revealed. Against 548 sanctioned posts of teachers, it has 265 faculty members, which means 52 per cent of posts are vacant. The other shortages are as follows: IIT Kharagpur- 46 per cent, IIT Roorkee- 42 per cent, IIT Kanpur- 37 per cent, IIT Delhi- 29 per cent, IIT Madras- 28 per cent, IIT Bombay- 27 per cent and IIT Guwahati- 25 per cent.
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