National Institute of Technology, Patna, will recruit 95 teachers this academic session following the nod from the Union ministry of human resource development to increase its sanctioned posts to 173 from 142.

“The ministry of human resource development (HRD) has given permission to increase the faculty strength to 173, an addition of 31 posts,” the newly appointed director of NIT-Patna, Asok De, told The Telegraph.

Before the strength revision, as many as 64 posts of teachers were vacant. With the addition of 31 new posts, the institute would now have to recruit 95 teachers to fill up all the vacancies.

De said the institution would fill up all the posts of teachers this academic session. “The institute will soon issue advertisements in national dailies inviting applications for teachers’ positions at NIT,” De said.

The news of upward revision of the faculty strength comes as a relief for the institution, struggling with severe crunch of teachers for the past few years.

“Based on the requirement of teachers, NIT-Patna prepared a report and submitted it to the HRD ministry on August 14 this year. Following this, the institute’s administration received a reply from the ministry to create 173 faculty posts, instead of the previous 142,” De said.

Sources said various engineering branches at NIT were reeling from severe scarcity of teachers. The civil engineering department has 14 teachers’ posts vacant, while computer science and electronics departments require 15 and 12 more faculty members, respectively.

Students said the recruitment of new faculty members at NIT would help strengthen the academic environment of the engineering institution. The institute had been depending on retired teachers and faculty from other colleges.

Vikash Kumar, a student of NIT, said: “Retired teachers used to teach us because of faculty crunch at NIT. Some of the teachers are so elderly that we often do not understand what they say. In some cases, teachers from other institutes did not have proper knowledge of the subject themselves.”

NIT students alleged that because of the faculty crunch, many students could not clear their exams. An NIT student said: “This year, 66 students failed to clear their examinations. They will have to study at the institute for another year.”

Some of the students, who failed to clear their exams, staged a demonstration on NIT campus on Tuesday demanding promotion.