Nearly two out of five faculty positions are vacant across all Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), official data showed, a shortage of teachers that comes even as sought-after colleges expand their campuses, increase student capacity and add a host of new programmes.
Of the 12,498 sanctioned faculty posts in 23 Indian Institutes of Technology, 4,804 posts, or 38.4%, were vacant as of January 30 this year, according to data collected and analyzed by HT. More than half of teaching places are vacant in two Indian Institutes of Technology – Patna (54.6%) and Kharagpur (51.3%) – and more than a third of places are open in 12 other schools.
IIT directors attributed the vacancies to the competitive global market for researchers and that the institutions were competing with top universities, multinational R&D laboratories and deep-tech startups for high-quality PhD graduates. They also added that the Indian Institutes of Technology’s “highly selective” recruitment processes mean that positions often remain vacant until suitable candidates are identified.
However, the gap threatens to derail plans to expand the prestigious institution across India and abroad and scale back IITs’ roadmaps for adding courses, under the Centre’s target of adding 6,500 seats by 2028-29.
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There are more than 135,000 students in the Indian Institutes of Technology.
Officials at the federal Ministry of Education did not respond to requests for comment on the shortage.
Most IITs said they have ramped up recruitment to reduce vacancies while maintaining stringent recruitment norms. The institutes, including IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras and IIT Gandhinagar, said they have adopted year-round rolling advertisements, special recruitment drives, mission mode recruitment, besides enhancing research grants, laboratory support, international collaborations and startup ecosystems to attract globally competitive faculty.
The data showed that the shortage includes the old and new campuses.
Among IGIs, Kharagpur (51.3%), Kanpur (39%), Bombay (38.4%), and Delhi (38.3%) have some of the highest vacancy rates. Among second-generation IITs, Patna tops the list with 54.6%, followed by Mandi (39.9%). Third generation institutes like IIT (ISM) Dhanbad (48.4%), IIT Goa (45.8%) and IIT Guwahati (42.2%) are also facing faculty gaps. At the other end, IIT Dharwad had the lowest vacancy rate at 1.07%, followed by IIT Palakkad (5.88%), IIT Ropar (14.35%), IIT Tirupati (14.38%), and IIT Bhilai (15.1%).
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HT analyzed the data uploaded on the IIT Council website following a parliamentary question by Rajya Sabha Muslim League MP Abdul Wahab, who sought institutional details of approved, filled and vacant teaching posts in centrally funded higher education institutions.
In his response on February 4, Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar said faculty vacancies were a “continuous process” resulting from retirements, resignations and promotions, and said institutions were conducting year-round recruitment, special recruitment drives and “recruiting in mission mode”. However, the written response did not include the institution-level vacancy figures requested by the MP.
Officials from the ministry in an email dated January 28 asked IITs to submit data by January 30. HT has seen the email. The data for the institution was later uploaded on the IIT Board’s website on March 10. The documents covered 22 IITs, while HT obtained IIT Patna data separately from the institute. “The question is no longer whether India can attract world-class talent. The question is whether we can create the most exciting environment in the world for talent to flourish,” said Professor Suman Chakraborty, Director, IIT Kharagpur.
IIT Kharagpur has completed more than 215 faculty selections since October 2025, focusing on emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum technologies, Chakraborty said.
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Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Professor Manindra Agrawal, said the faculty shortage was “not a new phenomenon” and persisted because the Indian Institutes of Technology had deliberately maintained strict recruitment criteria for posts where a teacher could be hired for three to four decades for research and teaching. “…We are not getting enough candidates with high-quality PhDs,” Agrawal said, adding that many of the best PhD graduates are now pursuing careers abroad. He said teaching was not affected as IIT Kanpur had adequate faculty to run its academic programmes, but the shortage was affecting research in emerging areas.
IIT Madras, which has 411 vacancies against 1,100 posts, said rapid hiring could create continuity problems because large groups being placed together would also retire around the same time. The institute said it is reducing teaching loads through visiting faculty, adjunct faculty and practicing professors while continuing regular recruitment.
The documents also reveal gaps in reporting. Only nine IITs – Guwahati, Roorkee, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Ropar, Mandi, Tirupati and Belay – provided data of faculty vacancy by caste category. The rest of the companies only reported total vacancy numbers. Of these nine posts, SC, ST and OBC posts together account for 888 of the 1,501 faculty vacancies – nearly 60% of the total. The number of vacancies for OBC alone stands at 477, accounting for about one-third of all reported vacancies, followed by General (443), SC (261), EWS (170) and ST (150).
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Faculty said greater transparency in shortlisting could help improve recruitment outcomes. “The government imposes reservation, but the shortlisting process is largely handled at the department level. There should be clearer and more transparent screening criteria,” said a faculty member from IIT Roorkee who requested anonymity.
There are no uniform screening criteria, making shortlisting dependent on departmental committees and individual assessors, said a faculty member from IIT Indore.
