Just 25% 'ghost faculty' appear for univ probe

THE investigation into the ghost faculty fraud in engineering colleges affiliated to the Anna University is yet to reach a conclusion as a majority of the teachers suspected to have been involved in the illegality have failed to appear before the university's probe committees.

- BINITA JAISWAL

The teachers' list was prepared after officials scoured through a database containing 52,500 records.

According to sources, after the scam was unearthed by NGO Arappor Iyakkam in July, Anna University initiated a probe and found that over 676 teachers were shown to be working as full-time faculty in multiple engineering colleges simultaneously in the academic year 2023-24.

Accordingly, show-cause notices were issued to them in August. However, so far only around 25% of them have appeared before the probe panels. This despite six probe committees being formed for various regions to help teachers avoid the trouble of travelling all the way to Chennai.