Year on year, the huge backlog of vacancies in teaching posts of Utkal University has remained a cause for concern. Although till a few months back, the university authorities were hopeful of tiding over the situation with fresh recruitments, there has been no development so far. Instead, the number of vacancies has only increased.
Next month, the University will hold its 45th convocation amid 110 vacancies in teaching posts.
As per the official records, of 257 sanctioned posts, the State's premier university at present has 147 teachers in-position for its 27 departments. The vacancy figure stands at 110. There are around 78 Professors, 42 Lecturers and around 40 Readers in the University.
Official sources said the State Government had stopped recruitment in universities in 2011 due to financial constraints, but considering the situation in Utkal University, it has give the green signal recently.
The university authorities said some of the lecturers' posts in various departments are being managed on contractual basis. The University has been resorting to a stop-gap arrangement by roping in guest and retired lecturers to teach the students, but this has been of little help.
Those departments are Zoology, Psychology, Political Science, Physics, Library Science and Geography.
The situation is worse in Biotechnology department which has just one Lecturer, one Reader, but no Professor.
Sources said though the vacancies have been created due to transfers and retirements, the Government has remained silent on the issue citing financial constraints. In next few days, 10 to 12 teachers will retire adding to the vacancy figure.
Registrar of Utkal University Khitish Das said any decision regarding the recruitment will be taken by the Government.
The situation is equally bad in non-teaching section with 277 posts under various categories lying vacant. Those are establishment, examination, registration and migration, engineering, certificate, audit sections.