Huge backlog of OBC quota faculty positions in central universities

Notwithstanding the Government’s repeated assurance to Parliament, the backlog of the posts vacant under the other backward classes (OBC) quota continues to be staggering high at many of the central universities.

Banaras Hindu University (BHU) is leading the institutions which have kept a large number of faculty positions vacant under the OBC quota despite the Government's constant push for filling up the posts.

A total of 70 out of 583 sanctioned positions of faculties reserved for the OBC candidates are lying vacant at the BHU, located in the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

The Government has allocated a fund of Rs 181 crore to the varsity for implementation of the OBC quota. The fund, however, remains lying unspent with the university. Next in the line is the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) where as many as 53 faculty positions remain lying vacant under the OBC quota, followed by the Central University of Manipur 22, University of Allahabad 17, University of Haryana 14, University of Puducherry 12 and University of Hyderabad 8.

Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, which is a deemed university under the University Grants Commission (UGC), has kept all the 22 OBC quota faculty positions vacant. A total of 18 out of 40 central universities including the central university of Karnataka, however, have cleared all the backlog posts under the OBC quota by the end of March 2016 following a constant push from the Human Resource Development Ministry.

A parliamentary committee on the welfare of OBC in its report in 2015 had taken serious exception to the backlogs of OBC quota posts at various central funded higher educational institutions, asking the Government to ensure filling up of these posts.

“Although backlogs of posts of the OBCs in various central universities have been brought to nil, yet still in the case of prominent central universities, with a huge backlog of posts of OBC as on March 31, 2016, still figure in,” the panel said in its recent report to Parliament.

The committee rejected the HRD Ministry's submission that institutions were finding it difficult to get qualified candidate for various teaching positions under the OBC quota.

The Ministry told the panel that both processes for filling up posts under OBC quota at the Indian Institutes of Technology(IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology(NITs) was on.
“The OBC candidates have been called for interviews with relaxed performance /achievement norms for some IITs. To fill up vacancies in the NITs, the same exercise is undertaken for OBC candidates for NITs also on the pattern of IITs,” the panel suggested.