Indus Valley Times

NEW DELHI, MAY 3: The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday launched a unified recruitment portal for hiring faculty to 46 central universities (CU) in the country. The portal, UC-Chayan, which was launched by UGC Chairman Prof. M. Jagadesh Kumar, is completely user-friendly and caters to the needs of all the stakeholders in the recruitment process. The process of filling up vacant positions, which have already been advertised, will continue. But from now, applicants have to apply only on the CU-Chayan portal for all recruitments. This portal is only for the faculty vacancies arising in all CUs.

In March, the centre said that, of the 18,956 sanctioned faculty posts in CUs, 6,028 posts are vacant. The Education Ministry also said that recruitment has been started in mission mode.

The UGC chief said that the “portal was developed to create an enabling environment for both universities and the applicants with universities driving all the stages of the recruitment independently, as is being done at present in the respective university.”

The portal will provide a common platform for listing vacancies, advertisements, and jobs across all CUs.The portal makes the recruitment process completely online starting from application to screening with alerts to all the users of the portal.

Some of the key features of the portal are – Single applicant login for applying to any/all CU; real-time tracking of application; personalized dashboard for each applicant; admin dashboard for each University/Department; built-in email communication tool; online feedback/reference for applicants and real-time analysis and application insights.

The UGC chairman said that for applicants, the platform offers a range of features, including a consolidated listing of job openings across all participating universities, a single login for applying to any of the varsities, and a personalized dashboard to help manage the application process.

The applicant can also search for jobs using various filters like university name, location, designation, category, subject, type of employment, experience, education level, etc.

They will be able to access the faculty application process of any CU from this single portal. They can also keep updating their application from the personalized dashboard for each applicant and transfer this application to any CU which has advertised faculty positions.

Registered applicants will also get an auto email informing them about the new vacancies advertised by any CU. For the varsities also, the platform provides real-time tracking of applications, customized admin dashboards, and configurable advertisement rules. “It also enables a completely online process including payment gateways, from initial application to screening, and includes built-in email communication tools and online feedback and reference options for referees,” he said.  He added that it also provides real-time analysis and insights into the application process.

“The Screening Committee of the University can view details of the applicants, points/research scores given by the system, and check the uploaded document against each entry. Points and comments of the Screening Committee can also be recorded in the portal itself,” he added. The CU-Chayan portal has been developed in consultation with the Vice Chancellors of all CUs. The current reservation system will also not be affected.  Each university will continue to follow the government of India reservation system and prepare their respective rosters as per DOPT rules, he added.

“The central universities will continue to advertise the positions, collect online applications, shortlist the applicants, conduct the interviews and appoint the faculty members as they were doing earlier. All the above activities will be carried out through the admin dashboard for each university on this portal,” said Kumar. On the portal, applicants will find a consolidated list of openings across the central universities, and personalised dashboards to help manage the application process. There will be filters such as location, designation, subject, experience and education level, which the applicants can tick to view the openings that suit them.

 “For the universities, the platform shall provide real-time tracking of applications, from initial application to screening, and include built-in email communication tools and online feedback and reference options for referees,” Kumar said.

-TNIE