Madras University facing severe staff shortage

It is not just financial problems that the University of Madras is facing. It is functioning with just 40% of its sanctioned faculty.

It is not just financial problems that the University of Madras is facing. It is functioning with just 40% of its sanctioned faculty.

Of the 513 sanctioned posts, only 208 are occupied. As many as 305 posts, which is 59.5%, are vacant. At least, 41 of the 90 departments have vacancies. Three departments do not have any faculty and three Centres of Advanced Study are functioning with very few staff that could result in centres losing their status.

Two departments — Pharmacology and Environment Toxicology and Pathology — do not have faculty.

P. Kalaiselvi, a professor in the Medical Biochemistry department, has been listed on the university website as the head of the Department of Pathology. B. Anandan, an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics, is functioning as assistant professor in the Pharmacology and Environment Toxicology department.

The CAS in Botany, which has been sanctioned 22 posts, has only six faculty. In the Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics, there are only seven faculty as against 21 sanctioned strength. Similarly in the CAS in Crystallography and the Department of Crystallography and Biophysics has only eight faculty of the 17 sanctioned posts. 

“These are very important departments enjoying the CAS status recognised by the University Grants Commission. In RIAS, there is no professor to act as director and owing to its very low staff strength it stands to forfeit the status,” said G. Shanmugam, retired head of CAS in Crystallography and Biophysics.