The students of 90 government degree colleges of Uttarakhand are suffering with 58 percent seats of the lecturers lying vacant. In Garhwal division, the figure is 62 percent in 48 colleges while in Kumaon division, the figure is 57 percent in 42 colleges. Things came into focus after Nadimuddin of Kashipur enquired through right to information act (RTI). Public Information Officer of Higher Education Directorate, Uttarakhand stated that out of total 1656 sanctioned posts in 90 degree colleges of the State, 971 post of lecturers were lying vacant with just 685 lecturers catering to the students.
However, 408 lecturers were appointed on ad-hoc basis later. Still 563 posts are still lying vacant. In addition, 20 lecturers are not doing duties while two have been promoted and 18 have put in papers having changed professions. English Department is bearing the maximum brunt of things with the vacancy figure standing at 95.
The figure for Hindi is 85, 45 in Geography, 44 in Sanskrit, 74 in Economics, 61 in Sociology, 81 in Political Science, 18 in Education, 15 in Home Science, nine in Defence Science, 53 in Physics, 58 in Chemistry, 50 in Zoology, 51 in Botany, 44 in Mathematics, 62 in Commerce, three in BBA, six in BCA, five in MBA, one in BTS and three in Computer Science. Notably, Physical Education, Tourism, Philosophy and Journalism are the subjects where none of the seats is vacant on account of low number of students.