With less than three months left for the incumbent Vice Chancellor P. Duraisamy to demit office, the University of Madras is facing a huge backlog of vacancies in faculty positions.
Mr. Duraisamy will complete his tenure on May 26. A State government order prevents him from making appointments beginning 90 days from the expiry of his tenure.
Several issues contributed to the delay in recruitment. The Supreme Court verdict on considering a university as a unit for reservation of posts had led to suspension of recruitment for nearly two years. Earlier the university was without a V-C for two years.
Though the States were later informed that they could carry out the recruitment as per the State’s reservation policy, the general elections in 2019 further delayed the process. The University Grants Commission denied it permission to run distance education programmes citing faculty shortage. The VC transferred faculty from some departments to ensure that the IDE programmes could be run.
The university’s finances were poor and the State government cut back on the grants following audit objections. Finally in February, the government announced that since the university had corrected some of the errors it would be provided a special grant to pay the pension due to its non-teaching faculty.
Legal hurdles
Now the university, with 78 departments, is facing a series of hurdles from aspirants who have sought legal intervention. According to a Syndicate member, the sanctioned strength in the year 1996 was increased to 540 faculty posts.
One group has challenged the State government’s decision to allow Bharathidasan University to follow the Central government’s reservation rules when the State Act governs State Universities. A few candidates have questioned the university’s decision to not recognise post-doctoral research experience from institutions other than universities or from abroad. These cases are still pending in court.
According to Mr. Duraisamy, during his tenure as many as 170 faculty had been awarded promotions.The promotions under career advancement scheme had been pending for quite a few eligible professors and his aim had been to implement the CAS.
“We followed the University Grants Commission norms, including in the constitution of panel of experts for assessing the candidates,” Mr. Duraisamy said. The interview panel comprised three external subject experts, the VC and the Head of the Department as observer. A woman member was included if the candidate was a woman and an SC/ST faculty member, if the candidate was an SC/ST, he added.
Mr. Duraisamy said he would complete the process and resolve the court cases so that the next VC would be able to appoint faculty immediately.
