‘Over 80,000 ghost teachers identified’

The Centre has identified over 80,000 “ghost” teachers in various colleges and institutes across the country since the introduction of Aadhaar, government officials said Friday.

Officials of human resource development (HRD) ministry said most of these teachers are from technical institutes, including engineering colleges.

HRD minister Prakash Javadekar, however, clarified that none of the teachers are from any central university. “There are certain ‘ghost’ teachers who use proxy methods and apparently teach at multiple places full time. After Aadhaar seeding was done, 80,000 such teachers have been identified. It is still being verified and action will be considered against them,” Javadekar said at an event.

“The ‘ghost’ teachers have not been identified in any central university but in some state universities and private ones.”

Officials said that details of teachers collected under the All India Survey on Higher Education, 2016-17 will be uploaded in the portal ‘Gurujan’, which is under development. “While collecting the details, we found there is duplication as some teachers were teaching at two institutes simultaneously. We are verifying their data again,” said a senior HRD official.

Of the 15 lakh teachers, 12.68 have provided their Aadhaar numbers so far, Javadekar said. “More such teachers will be identified once we have complete (Aadhaar) data,” he said.

Though the ministry has asked all universities to seek Aadhaar numbers from employees and students to ensure there is no duplication, concerns have been raised about data leakage.

Earlier, the ministry had also found “ghost” students who were taking benefits of the midday meal scheme in a few states.