Lok Sabha Question No. 94 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2019-02-04
Subject: Shortage of Faculty
Ministry: HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: BHARTRUHARI MAHTAB, SANJAY SHAMRAO DHOTRE, RAHUL RAMESH SHEWALE

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 94 TO BE ANSWERED ON 04.02.2019

## Shortage of Faculty

## 94. SHRI BHARTRUHARI MAHTAB:

## SHRI SANJAY DHOTRE:

SHRI RAHUL SHEWALE:

## Will the Minister of HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:

- (a) whether there is a huge shortage of faculty in institutions imparting technical education across the country;
- (b) if so, the details thereof, State/UT-wise and Institution-wise along with the reasons therefor;
- (c) whether the Government has conducted any study/enquiry to assess the adverse impact of such shortage of faculty on education imparting by these institutions in the country;
- (d) if so, the details and the outcome thereof and if not, the reasons therefor;
- (e) whether the Government has accepted all the recommendations of the Kakodkar Committee, constituted  by  the  Government  to  improve  the  quality  of  technical    education    and    faculty development;
- (f) if so, the details thereof along with the implementation status of such accepted recommendations and if so, the reasons therefor; and
- (g) the other steps taken/being taken by the Government in this direction?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

## (DR. SATYA PAL SINGH)

(a)  to  (g):    There  is  shortage  of  faculty  in  institutions  imparting  technical  education  across  the country.  However, complete data regarding State/UT-wise and Institution-wise faculty shortage details along-with reasons therefor for all the institutions imparting technical education across the country  is  not  centrally  maintained.    No  study  /  enquiry  to  assess  the  adverse  impact  of  such shortage of faculty on education imparted by these institutions in the country has been undertaken by the Government.  Arising of vacancies and their filling up is a continuous and ongoing process. The institutes such as IITs, NITs, IITs, IISERs etc. have taken measures to attract quality faculty, which  inter-alia  include  rolling  advertisements,  appointment  of  NRIs  and  OCIs  to  faculty positions.    Besides,    institutions  also  engage  contract,  adjunct  and  visiting  faculty  as  per  their requirements as well as use the online mode of teaching to overcome the shortages.  Further, more than 1700 quality faculty (from IITs, NITs etc.) has been provided in Technical Education Quality Improvement  Programme  Phase-III  (TEQIP-III)  to  Focus  State  institutions  to  compensate  for Student  Faculty  Ratio.      The  improvisation  of  the  IITs  is  a  continuous  process.  The  status  of implementation of recommendations of the Kakodkar Committee is as follows :-

- (i) IITs have increased intake of PhDs. The number of PhD enrolment has increased to 23,500  from  5,000  in  2011.    In  older  IITs,  the  number  of  post-graduate  and research scholars in now in majority.
- (ii) Under  schemes  like  IMPRINT  and  UAY,  funding  has  been  enhanced  for promoting research in the IITs. The research in IITs has increased manifold with the Department of Science & Technology (DST) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) grants.
- (iii) Research parks have been sanctioned at IITs: Kharagpur, Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Guwahati,  Hyderabad  and  Gandhinagar.    IIT-Madras  Research  park  is  fully functioning.
- (iv) Ministry  of  Railways,  MEITY  have  been  setting  up  research  labs  in  IITs  which could engage themselves in research on National Programmes.
- (v) All IITs have been asked to undertake training programmes as per the demand of the market.
- (vi) Government is of the opinion that the dependence of IITs on Govt. grants shall be replaced  with  a  more  market  oriented  systems,  so  that  the  IITs  need  not  be constrained  due  to  the  limitations  in  the  budget  limits.  Accordingly,  the  Higher Education  Financing  Agency  (HEFA)  was  set  up  to  fund  the  infrastructure  and research  projects  from  CFIs.  The  HEFA  is  registered  as  a  NBFC,  and  the  Govt. provides  additionality  for  servicing  the  interest  portion  of  the  loan.  So  far,  IITs have been sanctioned with HEFA loan of about Rs. 4000 Crore for upgrading their infrastructure.
- (vii) The  process  of  scaling  up  the  faculty  is  a  continuous  process.  The  number  of faculty has increased from 4,000 to 6,043 in the past 5 years.
- (viii) IITs have the freedom to decide on their composition of the staff, but the numbers are limited at 1: 1.1 between faculty and staff.  IITs can recruit staff on outsourced mode.
- (ix) All IITs are encouraged to participate in the innovation drives like the Smart India Hackathon, and Smart India Hardware Hackathon. The Tech Business Incubators (TBIs) in the IITs also help in facilitating innovative ideas till they reach the stage of commercialization.
- (x) The annual intake of IITs has increased significantly in the last 5-6 years and the present total intake of IITs is 30,612.

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