In Deccan College, few teachers on reserved posts for 33 years

Reserved category students almost non-existent

One of the oldest institutions in the country, the Deccan College has for long faced shortage of teachers. But the situation is particularly dismal when it comes to posts for teaching faculty in backward and scheduled categories with most of these seats remaining vacant for the last 33 years. Director V P Bhatta says even the number of reserved category students is negligible in the 192-year-old college.

"In the Sanskrit department, two posts for editor (professor), a post for assistant editor (associate professor), and two posts for sub-editor in the Lexicography department have been lying vacant in the reserved category for the last 33 years," says Bhatta. Same is the situation with other departments. "Out of 10 posts in Linguistics and Archeology departments, four reserved seats each have been lying vacant again for the last 33 years," he adds.

One of the major problems for these seats remaining vacant, says Bhatta, is the dearth of applicants. "In the last three years, we have placed four advertisements inviting applications from teachers in reserved categories. Not even one application came. Now we have stopped advertising," says the director. "Another problem is the rule that the expert in a particular field should also be a domicile of Maharashtra to be eligible for these seats. For example, an expert in Dravidian languages will most probably be a south Indian and not Maharashtrian. Further, a post of Reader in Sindhi language is reserved for an OBC candidate. Someone told me that there are no OBCs in Sindhi who have a Maharashtra domicile. I think these two posts will remain vacant forever," adds Bhatta.

As per government rules, open category candidates cannot be considered for reserved seats even if they are lying vacant. "We agree with this rule in principle. But due to this students and various projects like the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Sanskrit are suffering badly. We have written to the government so many times to allow us to recruit open candidates, but to no avail," says Bhatta.

... contd.

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