Shortage of teachers in CSA University affects teaching

Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology is grappling with the problem of acute shortage of teachers. The university administration started the recruinting process for around 69 new faculty members, and their interviews were also conducted in December last year. But, before the results could be declared on December 31, governor-chancellor Ram Naik, at meeting of the management committee, put on hold the entire selection process on the charge of anomalies.
Until the new teaching staff is recruited, the existing teachers will remain overburdened. At present there are only four professors in the university along with hundred other teachers, including the adhoc ones, who conduct the classes. While the process of appointment of new teachers is in progress, around 50 old teachers, could not get promotion for the past several years.
A total of 60 percent of the teaching posts are lying vacant in the university. For last 13 years, no new appointment of teacher has been made in the university. The last time when teachers were appointed on the post of assistant professors was in 2001.
Though promotion process was initiated in 2007, but even after that several teachers working as assistant professors could not be promoted as associate professors or associate professors as professors. In these years, many senior teachers also got retired. This further reduced the number of the teaching staff on the university campus.
Surprisingly, the university does not have a permanent director of extension, director of research, dean, students' welfare, registrar, joint director (research) to name a few. These posts are either lying vacant or have been handed over to the teachers as additional charge.
Further, four professors have been given the additional charge. They are: Sameer Pal, head, soil science department, who is also dean, agriculture, Rajendra Prasad, head, plant pathology department, who is also director, administration and monitoring and Poonam Singh, head, seed science and Rajendra Singh. Not only this, out of a total 19 departments, (14 departments in college of agriculture and five departments in college of home science), both run on college campus, have just a few teachers.
This is the situation when 1500 students are enrolled in different departments of the two colleges on the university campus. Under such a situation, the new appointments would have given a breather to the teachers working as professors, associate professors and assistant professors. But, on the complaint by one of the former CSA teachers that there were anomalies in the ongoing recruitment process, governor-chancellor Ram Naik withheld the results till further notice.
Talking to TOI, assistant professor, Naushad Khan, who is also a spokesperson of the university, said that appointment for 69 teaching posts in the university were advertised. These posts were being filled through direct selection. “A panel, including four experts all from outside the state, interviewed the candidates and shortlised them. The results were to be declared in the meeting of the management committee of university, but were stopped by governor-chancellor”, said Naushad Khan. He admitted that 60 percent of the teaching posts are lying vacant in the university.
He also admitted that the university does not have teachers on important posts such as director of extension, director of research, dean, students' welfare, registrar, joint director (research) etc. The present teachers have to perform administraitve jobs too which affect teaching, said Khan. “During the ongoing recruitment process, some 50 teachers were to be promoted but their promotion is also on a hold now”, he added.