JU faces crunch of non-teaching staff; stakeholders suffer

Tahir Mushtaq

JAMMU, July 03: Nearly 318 non-teaching positions in Jammu University are lying vacant in University of Jammu (JU) for quite some time which has affected the functioning of the university aiming to become one of the leading institution in northern India.

Most of the vacant posts deal with the day today functioning of the university and no serious efforts are being made to fill the posts, despite required funds at the disposal of the varsity administration.

According to sources, out of 1,324 sanctioned non-teaching positions there were around 318 posts lying vacant. Sources revealed that in the various positions of Officers, Junior Assistant and Semi-professional Assistant there were 76, 41 and 17 posts respectively lying vacant.

Similarly, the posts of Section Officer, Head Assistant, Personal Assistant, Senior Personal Assistant, Head Groundsman and Ward Boy were also lying vacant. “Among the technical positions 25 posts are lying vacant out of the total sanctioned strength of 92 ranging across different class. Further, 18 positions of head gardener and gardener out of total sanctioned strength of 64 posts were also lying unfilled” said a source.

Moreover, in class four category the number of sanctioned positions was 700, out of which 80 were still unfilled. “Recently, the strike by the non gazetted employee union in favor of their demand to regularization and enhancement in daily wages shows that the JU administration failed to handle the issue properly,” said a official.

Ironically, neither the Chancellor nor the Vice Chancellor has been able to lead the path in this direction. Sources disclosed that Vice Chancellor was not able to take decision pertaining to recruitment process, which was mainly responsible for shortage of workforce.

When contacted, Registrar Prof Manoj Dhar said University was looking into the issue of staff shortage and making arrangement to run the system efficiently. He added that process of new recruitment for the vital positions will also be taken up and completed within the shortest possible time.