Union government has decided to address the issue of seats which are left unfilled in large portions in premier institutions across the country. However, the institutions are not complying by the rules abided by the government.
In order to resolve the issue of vacant seat, Union government has instructed the institutes like IITs, NITs and other colleges to increase the student intakes in their respective colleges and courses.
Even after all the efforts, the issue seemed remain unsolved. As per the State HRD Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey, in 2016 six phases of seat allotment were conducted and 73 seats in IITs, 23 seats in IIT (ISM) Dhanbad and 1518 seats in NITs were remained vacant. Apart from these, 407 seats in IIITs and 11274 seats in other centrally-funded technical institutes are left vacant.
As an answer to a question asked in Lok Sabha, the minister said that only 9, 15,196 seats were filled out of the total 18, 22,932 seats in undergraduate and postgraduate engineering courses
According to the UGC Annual Report 2014-15, the number of universities and colleges in the country had gone up by 711 and 40,760 and the minister has pointed out about this report in his written reply.
According to the minister, the numbers of universities in the country are incessantly increasing, but the faculty positions in the universities remain vacant. He stated that about 308 faculty positions are vacant only in JNU.