Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development (HRD)has expressed anguish at the acute shortage of faculty members in IITs, IIMs and universities. <br/><br/>The panel has asked the government to take steps to fill up the vacancies and to make the teaching profession more attractive. In a report, the committee, headed by BJP MP Satyanarayan Jatiya, has asked the Department of Higher Education to expedite the process of filling up the vacancies. <br/><br/>The Parliamentary panel was anguished to find that from well-established central universities to those set up recently, state or private varsities were functioning with large vacancies. The 31-member panel observed that the availability of adequate and qualified faculty is a pre-requisite for quality education. The HRD Ministry had last December told Parliament that<br/>1,310 posts of professors were vacant in various central universities.