New Delhi: The total number of universities in the country has reached 799 and out of them 386 Universities came into existence since 2001 as per All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2015-16. Out of these there are 41 central universities. There were 760 universities in 2014-15.

Further, the number of students and teachers in the institutions of higher education in the country during academic year 2015-16 are 3.46 crore and 15.19 lakh, respectively. The Minister of State (HRD), Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, today (15 December 2016) informed this in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question.

The universities are facing acute shortage of faculty staff. The minister said that out of the total number of sanctioned teaching posts of 17,006 (2407 Professor, 4789 Associate Professor, 9810 Assistant Professor), in 40 Central Universities (CUs) under the purview of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), 6080 teaching posts (1308 Professor, 2230 Associate Professor, 2542 Assistant Professor) are lying vacant as on 01 October 2016.

In case of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), the similar situations exist. At IGNOU against the sanctioned teaching posts of 454 (69 Professor, 135 Reader/Associate Professor, 250 Assistant Professor) , 176 posts (38 Professors, 51 Reader/Associate Professor, 87 Assistant Professor) are lying vacant as on 01 November 2016.