Chandigarh: 35 percent faculty posts lying vacant at PGI

The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, is reeling under faculty crunch as around 35% of the faculty posts are lying vacant in the institute.

The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, is reeling under faculty crunch as around 35% of the faculty posts are lying vacant in the institute.

According to information obtained by Hindustan Times, 186 of 540 faculty posts, which have been sanctioned to the institute at various levels to expand the infrastructure under Other Backward Class (OBC) category expansion quota, are lying vacant. The institute failed to conduct regular interviews to fill these posts. The last interview conducted for direct recruitment was in 2011.

Though the vacant posts are at almost every level - from assistant professor to professor level, most of the vacant positions are at the assistant professor level. At the assistant professor level, the total sanctioned posts are 286, of these 155 are lying vacant. Similarly at the professor level, 27 posts are lying vacant. Two posts each are lying vacant at the associate professor and additional professor level.

Two posts each are lying vacant at the additional and associate professor level.

These four posts are mainly of those faculty members who have resigned from the institute. Another reason for delay in the filling of these posts is standing selection committee that conducts these interviews was not in place for quite some time. It was constituted recently under the chairmanship of former director of the institute Dr BK Sharma. In the absence of regular recruitment, it often becomes a common practice to fill the vacant posts on contractual or ad-hoc basis.

PGIMER spokesperson Manju Wadwalkar said they are in the process of starting the faculty recruitment. “The vacant posts will be filled up soon,” she said.