“The Higher Education Department will prioritize the recruitment of teachers for courses with high student numbers.”

The Tamil Nadu Higher Education Department will prioritize filling vacancies in these programs with high enrollment in state universities, University of Madras (UoM) Higher Education Secretary Dheeraj Kumar told the senate on Friday.

The ministry has sought the vacancy lists of all state universities, along with the teacher-student ratio, Mr. Kumar said in response to questions from professors at a Senate meeting he chaired.

“The government is now clear about the policy, and this will be done. We want to give priority to such departments so that in the event of a fundamental shortage, they are immediately addressed through regular admission to the faculties,” he explained.

SS Sundaram, head of the history department, said the 170-year-old university has 540 faculty members, but less than 175 are employed. For the last 12 years, there has been no recruitment drive to fill vacancies and more than 20 departments have been functioning with one faculty member.

Deficit budget

Pointing out that the university presented a deficit budget to the Senate, V. Chandra Kumar, Head of the Department of Library and Information Science, said that earlier this year ₹77 crore was withdrawn from its corpus fund to meet the final benefits of retired employees, reducing the fund to just over ₹300 crore.

He asked the government for a supplementary grant to cover day-to-day expenses for salaries and pension benefits of staff and faculty. In response, the minister of higher education said that the UoM, as an autonomous body, should explore options to increase its income.

He encouraged members to write to the Finance Officer or Secretary with ideas. But in the event of a blackout, the government will step in to resolve it, he said.

C. Murugan, Head of the Department of Sanskrit, has requested a one-time grant of ₹ 500 crore to bail out the university from its financial woes. He also raised the issue of undue delay in extending the benefits of Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) to university teachers.

‘Redundant Process’

E. Murugan, Head of the Department of Physical Chemistry, said CAS files go through several stages of approval even as the competent authorities stamp them. The process was “redundant”.

The Higher Education Minister said that past experience was full of remedial orders that were not pleasant for either side. He said the process had started in earnest and would be expedited.

S. Santhosh Baboo, Principal, DG Vaishnav College, wanted the university to speed up the process of extending affiliation to colleges.

D. Anand, Associate Professor, Department of Botany, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College, wanted the Government to introduce the Tamil Nadu Assured Pension Scheme soon and tabled a proposal to that effect in the next Syndicate meeting.

Published – 19 Sep 2026 0:11 IST