A recent RTI reply has revealed that Rajasthan Technical University, which was set up in 2006, currently functions with less than 50 percent of sanctioned staff including teaching and non-teaching posts. The information sought through a Right to Information query by Kota based activist Sujeet Swami revealed that 63 percent of teaching posts in the university are unfilled.

For the non-teaching staff, 187 posts are filled against a sanctioned strength of 382 posts, including the important posts of examination controller, director, dean, and student welfare officer.

Currently, against the 37 sanctioned posts of professors, only 10 posts are filled. Similarly, only 19 associate professors are working against the sanctioned strength of 68 with 49 posts unfilled.

There are 67 assistant professors against the sanctioned posts of 156. All the 25 posts in the petrochemical, Information Technology and MBA courses in the university have remained unfilled.

Documents also revealed that the varsity had invited applications for filling various sanctioned posts in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2018 but did not go through with the recruitment process after charging exam fees from the applicants.

Between 2011 and 2018, the RTI reply shows that the university generated revenue of Rs 1.05 crore through exam fees from 36,230 candidates, who had applied for various posts in the period but only conducted exams in 2018.

That year, 41 posts of teaching and 19 posts of the non-teaching staff were filled from the vacancy advertised for 2014, it said. At present, its current strength stands at 44 percent with 283 posts of teaching and non-teaching staff out of a total of 643 sanctioned posts.

When queried about the vacancies, Vice-Chancellor Ram Avtar Gupta said, “We have written to the government for permission to fill up vacant sanctioned posts. Once the financial approval is received, we will initiate the process for recruitment.” Also, local BJP MLA Sandeep Sharma has assured to raise the issue in the state Assembly.

“It is unfortunate that so many posts of teaching and non-teaching staff are lying vacant in RTU. If we want our state to make technically skilled graduates, adequate number of teaching and non-teaching staff should be there to impart quality technical education to the students,” the Kota South MLA added.