Draft UGC Guidelines Suggest De-Reserving Faculty Positions in Universities

New Delhi: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has come up with draft rules to de-reserve the posts of faculty members in higher education institutions if 'enough reserved candidates are not available', The New Indian Express has reported.

The new guidelines were released in the last week of December. They are open for public opinion till today. The posts in question are meant for SC, ST and OBC categories.

Generally, these posts can't be de-reserved for unreserved category candidates. But for Group A posts, a university can prepare a proposal for de-reservation as they can't be allowed to remain vacant in 'public interest', the newspaper quoted the draft guidelines as saying.

"To do so, it would have to provide information like the designation, pay scale, name of the service, responsibilities, required qualifications, efforts made to fill the post, and why it cannot be allowed to remain vacant," the report said.

The Group C and D posts can be de-reserved by the executive council of the university itself while for Group A posts, the proposal has to be submitted to the Ministry of Education.

The guidelines would apply to all the central universities, deemed-to-be-universities, and other autonomous bodies/institutions under the central government or those receiving grant-in-aid from the UGC, central government, or consolidated fund of India.

These rules would apply in promotion policies, too.

The draft rules argued that there has been a shortfall in reserved category posts and the institutions should fill the vacant posts by starting a recruitment drive for the second time.

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