In the long run, the vacancies will have an impact on the quality of education as vacancies increase the workload on existing faculty in these premier institutions, the CAG report said.

Despite efforts put in by the IITs and a steady increase in the number of faculty members recruited every year, vacancies ranging from five to 36 percent in faculty positions were observed in seven IITs, inhibiting a speedy expansion of student intake, according to a CAG report.

The report is on ‘Performance Audit of Setting up of new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)’ for the 2014-2019 period. The eight institutes covered in the audit were IIT Bhubaneswar, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Indore, IIT Jodhpur, IIT Mandi, IIT Patna, and IIT Ropar.

“In PG and Ph.D. programs, vacancies were observed across all eight IITs, indicating a need for a realistic assessment of the student intake as well as evaluation of these programs with an objective of attracting required suitable students,” the report said.

“MoE permitted an increase in sanction of faculty positions linked with the increase in students, meaning sanction of faculty posts to be increased by one for every increase of students by 10 (1:10 ratio).

“Despite the efforts put in by the IITs and increase in faculty recruitment from year-to-year, vacancies ranging from 5 to 36 percent in faculty positions were observed in seven IITs. This inhibited the speedy expansion of student intake. In the long run, the vacancies will have an impact on the quality of education as vacancies increase the workload on existing faculty in these premier institutions,” it added.

The audit panel recommended that the IITs may periodically review the availability of faculty members and the means of attracting suitable candidates to fill the vacancies. It noted that there were a shortfall in enrolment in the post-graduate (PG) programs in all the eight IITs.