New Delhi: All Colleges, Universities and Deemed Universities have been given a six-month deadline to fill up their faculty vacancies, via a process that will be monitored at every step by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the University Grants Commission (UGC). Institutions which fail to meet the deadline were warned that their UGC grants may be withheld.

Pushing recruitment into mission mode, UGC issued revised guidelines, noting that “shortage of quality teaching faculty in HEIs (Higher Educational Institutions) is one amongst the many issues confronting the higher education system in the country”.

There are at least 5,000 vacant positions in 48 Central Universities alone. UGC oversees over 900 Universities and more than 40,000 Colleges across the country.

“HEIs should ensure that all the vacant posts, along with the reservation details, are uploaded on the online portal https://nherc.in. The monitoring of the filling up of the vacancies would be done by the MHRD and UGC through this portal,” said the revised guidelines. The portal belongs to the National Higher Education Research Centre (NHERC) run by the MHRD.

The six-month timeline allows 15 days for the identification of vacant posts, the details of which must be uploaded on the NHERC portal by June 20, 2019. Within 30 days thereafter, the competent authority of each institution is required to give its approval to fill up the vacancies.

The posts must then be advertised in the next 15 days, and Selection Committees constituted simultaneously, with dates fixed for their meetings.

By the end of the fourth month, applications must be scrutinised and interview letters sent to shortlisted candidates and also uploaded on the institution’s website.

The fifth month is reserved for conducting interviews and selecting the final candidates.

By the end of six months, appointment letters should have been issued, and uploaded on NHERC portal. “Violations of the guidelines may lead to appropriate action by the UGC against the institutions including withholding the grants.”