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Many IITs, IIMs, CUs without full-time heads

However, in reality, there hasn't been much improvement in the last many months

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As many as nine Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) out of the total 23 are functioning without a Chairperson, out of the 20 Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), four do not have full-time Directors, 15 out of 18 Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) are without a Director, 12 of the 31 National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and four out of the 47 Central Universities (CU) are functioning without permanent heads of the institutions.

Surprisingly, in the last few sessions of Parliament, the response of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), the nodal ministry for these institutions, to several questions about the appointment of faculty and institution heads has been as vague as it can be: "... Arising of vacancies and filling up of posts is a continuous process".

However, in reality, there hasn't been much improvement in the last many months.

Among the central universities, Tezpur University, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Visva Bharti University and Pondicherry University do not have permanent Vice-Chancellors (VC). Sources in the ministry informed that non-appointment of VC of Visva Bharti University hasn't gone down well with the Prime Minister's Office, which has even pulled up the concerned ministry officials responsible for the delayed appointment process.

The case of non-appointment of heads is especially bad in world–class technical institutions like Indian Institutes of Information and Technology (IIITs) and National Institute of Technology (NITs).

Incidentally, while replying to Pakistan at the United Nations General Assembly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had said while India created IITs, IIMs and AIIMS, Pakistan had produced Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Haqqani Network and Hizbul Mujahideen.

As per the data shared by HRD Ministry, 15 of the 18 IIITs have no chairperson or a full-time director. Nine IITs, including the six new ones, are functioning without a chairperson. Achairperson is the head of the Board of Governors (BoG) for these technical institutions, which takes important decisions related to the institutions functioning.

As many as 10 NITs are yet to fill the chairperson's post and 12 NITs have no directors either. Even as the mandate for Directors and Chairpersons is different, in 10 of the NITs, Directors have been asked to officiate as Chairpersons as well.

"Filling up of posts like Directors and Chairpersons for technical institutions takes more time as we have to find a suitable candidate, because of the task that they have to carry out. It is a time consuming process, plus we need to get the right people with proper qualifications," said a senior officer in the HRD Ministry.

He added that interviews for Directors of some NITs have been conducted and there should be some appointments soon.

The post of Directors is vacant in four Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), IIM Kozhikode, since April 2014, IIM Bodh Gaya, since August 2015, IIM Amritsar, since August 2015 and IIM Jammu, since August 2016.

"The process of appointment to the post of Director in these IIMs is underway. The new IIMs are being run by the mentor IIMs," another official in the ministry added.

This, however, is not the the only problem with these institutions. The ministry data also show that there are about 26 percent of faculty posts in IIMs and about 35 percent faculty posts in IITs that are lying vacant.

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