Disappointed over less faculty in institutes for disabled: Parl panel

A parliamentary standing committee has expressed disappointment over the majority of national institutes for the disabled having much less faculty members than their sanctioned strength.

The panel's report on social justice and empowerment on the 'review of the functioning of national institutes established for different types of disabilities' was tabled in Lok Sabha on Friday.

The committee is "disappointed" to note that the faculty members in most of these institutes are much less in comparison to their sanctioned strength. Insufficient faculty even in those Institutes which were established decades back is an alarming revelation.

The situation at Composite Regional Centres (CRCs) is also not good, the report said.

"For instance, the sanctioned strength for all the CRCs of the National Institute for Locomotor Disabilities is 26, out of which 20 posts are vacant," the report said.

"Similarly, out of the sanctioned strength of regular posts of 20 and contractual posts of 106 at CRCs of Swami Vivekanand National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research, 8 regular posts and 58 contractual posts are vacant," it said.

Since the situation at other institutes and CRCs is equally bad, the committee said it would suggest that the department needs to thoroughly examine the reasons, address the same early and get the vacancies filled so that the students and beneficiaries do not suffer.

"It must also be ensured that recruitment is done in a fixed time frame in future and is not left to linger for years together," it said.

The Committee have further observed that the information with regard to the sanctioned and actual strength is not available in the annual report of the institutes, and are of the strong opinion that such information should be made available in the annual reports of the institutes, the report added.