One in every 3 faculty posts vacant in top technical institutes | RTI data

More than 15 lakh students appeared for the high-stakes Joint Entrance Exam this year to get seats in the country’s leading technical institutions. The competition has always been tough, especially for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs); Around 80 students compete for every undergraduate seat in 23 IITs.

However, data on vacant teaching positions in these institutes Hindu It raises questions, through the Right to Information (RTI) Act, about whether students who overcome extraordinary odds to gain admission are getting the quality of education they deserve.

Hindu’The request submitted to the Ministry of Education (MOE) in January under the RTI Act, seeking details of vacancies in all Central Higher Education Institutions (CHEIs), was forwarded to individual institutions, of which only 79 out of 122 Centrally Funded Technical Institutes (CFTIs) responded. These include 20 IITs, 19 National Institutes of Technology (NITs), 18 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), 17 Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research.

A total of 7,132 of the 20,279 approved faculty positions in these 79 institutions were vacant; This corresponds to 35.2%, or roughly one in every three positions. While more than 50% of the positions of sixteen institutions were vacant, 14 other institutions had vacancies exceeding 40%.

Nine out of 20 IITs reported vacancies exceeding 35%. The share of vacancies at IIT Kharagpur has crossed 50%. The institute has an approved teaching staff of 1,600; this is the highest number among the 20 IITs; 824 of these remained empty. Of the 11,019 approved posts in all 20 IITs, 35% were vacant.

A similar analysis for 19 of the 31 NITs providing data shows four have vacancies exceeding 40%.

According to the data, 27.9% of the 5,432 vacancies in these 19 NITs remain unfilled. While more than 129 (68%) of the 187 posts remained vacant, NIT Andhra Pradesh accounted for the highest share of vacancies. More than 40% of the sanctioned posts were vacant in NIT Srinagar, NIT Sikkim and NIT Tiruchirapalli, the highest with 600 sanctioned posts.

According to a reply given by the Ministry of Education in Parliament last year, approval of faculty posts for NITs and IITs is a dynamic process; Subject to periodic review in accordance with institutional requirements and faculty-student ratio of 1:12 for NITs and 1:10 for IITs.

In 18 of the 21 IIMs that provided data, 32.3% of the 1,741 sanctioned posts were vacant. Four IIMs reported vacancies exceeding 50% (Chart 4). At IIM Mumbai, 59% of the posts were vacant and 77 of the 130 vacancies were unfilled.

IIITs reported the highest percentage of vacancies even though their confirmed positions were relatively low. A total of 665 (53.5%) of 1,225 posts were vacant at 17 of the 25 IIITs that provided data. In eight of these, vacancies exceeded 50%.

In five of the seven IISERs that provided data, 276 of 862 posts were vacant.

In another reply to the Lok Sabha earlier this year, the MOE did not specify the number of vacancies but said that “creation and filling of vacancies is a continuous process”. Additionally, all CHEIs are encouraged to fill vacancies under a “Mission Mode” recruitment campaign in September 2022 and subsequently in October 2025, it said. It was stated that as of January 24, 2026, a total of 17,878 faculty positions were filled across all CHEIs under this “Mission Mode”.

Nivedha M. detained in The Hindu

Data regarding the graphs were obtained through requests within the scope of the Right to Information Law. Responses received between January and March 2026