Nagpur: With 172 permanent teaching posts lying vacant, Nagpur University (NU) has again turned to contractual appointments to meet its teaching requirements. For the 2026-27 academic session, it has completed the recruitment of 139 contractual assistant professors, raising questions over the prolonged delay in filling permanent posts.
The university has 255 sanctioned posts for full-time faculty, of which only 83 are currently occupied. This means just around 33% of the sanctioned posts are filled, while nearly 67% remain vacant. The situation is particularly acute across the university’s 31 departments. Of the 218 sanctioned faculty posts, only a fraction are filled. Against 38 sanctioned professor posts, just two are occupied. Of the 66 associate professor posts, only 13 are filled. Similarly, against sanctioned posts of 114, NU currently has only 58 assistant professors.
He said prolonged vacancies were affecting teaching and research. At a recent Senate meeting, NU officials said the higher education department had called the registrars of NU and LITU for discussions on their reservation rosters. The staff crunch situation is not new for NU. The university has been relying on contractual appointments to address the faculty crunch for the last many years. NU management has been citing technical hurdles in the regular recruitment process as the reason behind hiring contractual faculty. Some departments have no full-time teachers. Faculty vacancies also plague the university’s Law College and BEd College. The prolonged vacancies have also raised questions about the role of state govt in expediting the regular recruitment process. Senate member Manmohan Bajpai has written to chief minister, governor and chancellor, and higher and technical education minister seeking early recruitment. The development indicates that the recruitment process is still linked to resolving issues related to the reservation roster.