Chandigarh: The ministry of education (MoE) has asked the Chandigarh administration to first fill 40 vacant faculty posts at Punjab Engineering College (PEC) before seeking approval for 72 additional Group A positions.
The move follows a proposal by the Chandigarh administration to create 72 new faculty posts at PEC, nine for professors, 13 for associate professors and 50 for assistant professors.
In a letter to the Chandigarh administration, the department of higher education, MoE, said the college has a sanctioned faculty strength of 162, of which 40 posts are vacant. It advised the administration to fill the existing vacancies first and then submit a fresh proposal, along with a draft cabinet note, for approval of the additional posts.
The ministry’s communication comes at a time when PEC has seen an increase in student strength and the addition of new courses. No new Group A faculty post has been created for the college since 2003.
“On the one side, where all bachelor and master courses of PEC are facing acute shortage of faculty staff, in the coming three years, around 30 professor-rank faculty members are going to retire. If the strength of the faculty is not increased, the condition will go from bad to worse. Moreover, since 2016, PEC has added four new courses, namely data science, AI, VLSI and B-Design, but faculty strength has not increased,” sources told TOI.
The detailed letter from the department of higher education reads: “It has been observed that the total sanctioned strength of PEC Chandigarh is 162, out of which 40 posts are still lying vacant. Therefore, proposal for creation of 72 additional Group ‘A’ faculty posts does not appear justified. In view of the above, it is advised to first fill up the existing vacant posts and thereafter submit fresh proposal, after due deliberation, along with a draft cabinet note for approval of the Government. This has the approval of the Competent Authority.”
What next
Once the 40 vacant posts are filled, 56 tenure-track faculty positions approved by the Board of Governors (BoG) are also expected to be filled. Sources said no recruitment has been carried out since 2025 due to the non-existence of the executive council (EC) and the appointment of a regular vice-chancellor.
