As much as 36 per cent of sanctioned posts of faculty members are vacant across eight Indian Institutes of Technology, a Right to Information reply has revealed.

The IITs in Mumbai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Chennai, Roorkee and Varanasi currently have 65,824 students, but only 4,049 teachers against 6,318 approved posts.

The RTI query was filed by Neemuch-based activist Chandrashekhar Gaud.

With 2,269 vacancies, these IITs have one teacher for every 16 students.

IIT Varanasi, where 5,485 students are enrolled, has the worst shortfall, it said. Against 548 sanctioned posts of teachers, it has 265 faculty members, which means 52 per cent of posts are vacant.

According to the HRD ministry data, IIT Kharagpur has 46 per cent posts vacant, IIT Roorkee 42 per cent, IIT Kanpur 37 per cent, IIT Delhi 29 per cent, IIT Madras 28 per cent, IIT Bombay 27 per cent and IIT Guwahati has 25 per cent posts vacant.