900 TEACHING POSTS LYING VACANT IN DU

New Delhi: Over 900 permanent teaching posts are lying vacant in Delhi University, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday. However, the University has hired ad-hoc and guest faculties in order to ensure that the studies of the students are not affected, minister of state for human resource development Mahendra Nath Pandey said in a written reply. “It has been reported that 911 permanent teaching posts were vacant in the University of Delhi as on October 1, 2016,” he said. Stating that occurrence of vacancies and filling up is a continuous process, he noted that the onus of filling up of the posts lies on the University, it being an autonomous body created under an Act of Parliament. However, the University Grant Commission (UGC) is continuously monitoring it, he added. “The issue has been discussed in a meeting with the vice-chancellors of Central Universities on October 6, 2016 at Varanasi and they have been requested to fill up the vacant posts at the earliest,” Mr Pandey said. Meanwhile, many top DU colleges faced the situation of excess admissions this year too as compared to the sanctioned strength of seats. “It feels good when varsity enrolls lot more students than the number of seats as it shows how much students are willing to study in DU be it from Delhi or outside. But one thing, which matters, is that colleges must also have the required infrastructure to accommodate so many extra students,” a DU source said.