Dhanbad: Jharkhand's only state-run engineering college BIT-Sindri, which is facing an acute shortage of faculty, is set to get 72 contractual teachers this year.

The selection process of the 72 teachers from IIT BHU, IIT Kharagpur and IIT(ISM) Dhanbad had been completed in October. The MoU with the respective institutes were inked on Tuesday following which the last date of reporting for the teacher was fixed on January 5.

The appointment is effective for five years but can be extended later.

The selected candidates include 13 of electrical engineering, eight each of mining and chemical engineering, seven of computer science engineering, six each of information technology and electronics & communication, five each of metallurgy, four of civil engineering, three each of geology, production and mechanical engineering and two each of English, chemistry and mathematics.

Giving details BIT-Sindri director Dharmendra Kumar Singh said till Tuesday, around 10 teachers had already reported for work. The remaining are expected to report within two days.

Following the recent appointments, BIT-Sindri will have a total of 149 teachers against the sanctioned strength 256. The institute has around 3,000 BTech, MTech and PhD students.

The new teachers are being appointed under the World Bank-sponsored Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme that focuses on manpower and infrastructure development.

A team from BIT-Sindri, led by Singh, had conducted campus selection at IIT(ISM) on August 31, IIT BHU on September 9 and IIT Kharagpur on September 19 and picked 80 candidates. After the interview held in Ranchi on October 9 and 10, 72 candidates were selected for appointment as contractual teachers.

"We may conduct the second phase of the selection process soon depending on the number of candidates joining the institute. We have fill in all the teacher vacancies during this year," Singh told The Telegraph.

He said the institute might also appoint some regular teachers as interviews for professors and associate professors had been conducted by Jharkhand Public Service Commission last year.

"We will also initiate the process for re-accreditation of all the 10 engineering courses from the National Board of Accreditation," Singh said, adding that they will also focus on consolidating the newly established incubation centre with the aim of promoting start-ups.