1500 posts lying vacant in seven state universities of Odisha

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Dec 2:

As many as 1498 teaching and non-teaching positions are lying vacant in seven of the state-funded universities operating under the Higher Education Department of Odisha Government, Higher Education Minister Pradeep Panigrahy has said.

According to data provided by Panigrahy in the Assembly yesterday while replying to an unstarred question of Rourkela MLA Dilip Ray, while there are 393 vacant teaching posts out of 975 sanctioned positions in these universities, another 1105 posts are lying vacant in non-teaching positions out of 2477 sanctioned strength.

These universities include Bhubaneswar based Utkal University, Cuttack based Ravenshaw University, Sambalpur University, Berhampur University, Balasore based Fakir Mohan University, Baripada based North Odisha University and Puri based Shree Jagannath Sanskrit University.

While Ravenshaw University has the maximum number of vacancies in teaching category with 161 vacancies out of its 267 sanctioned strength, premier Utkal University comes second with 86 vacancies out of its 257 sanctioned strength. Berhampur University has 63 vacancies against its 155 sanctioned strength. Similarly, the vacancies stand at 49 against 153 for Sambalpur University, 20 against 44 for Shree Jagannath University, 10 against 57 for Fakir Mohan University and 4 against 42 for North Odisha University.

In non-teaching category, Utkal University has maximum 477 vacancies out of 1000 sanctioned strength followed by Sambalpur University with 294 vacancies out of 600 sanctioned strength and 157 vacancies out of its 535 sanctioned strength for Berhampur University. A whopping 128 posts lie vacant out of 137 sanctioned posts in Ravenshaw University while the vacancies stand at 24, 19 and 6 out of 67, 74 and 64 for Fakir Mohan University, Shree Jagannath University, and North Odisha University respectively.

Curiously, the answer tabled by the Minister does not include vacancies in teaching and non-teaching positions in other state-funded universities such as Berhampur based Khallikote University, Sambalpur based Gangadhar Meher University and Bhubaneswar based Rama Devi University.