IIT row: Branding brand builders in pay

Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) by now have come to be recognized as a brand, globally. Behind this brand building goes years of hard work of the professors of these prestigious institutions which ensured the country a pride of place in the field of technical education. They bring laurels for the country and recognition to their students, but are they being given their due? This is the question lingering in many minds in the country today.

The demand for pay hike by the professors at the top institutions of technology in the country drew people’s attention to the disparities in the pay scales of these ambassadors of success in technical education. The question being asked among the academic circles is whether these brand builders get the reward for their achievement in the form of remuneration and perks. 

It is now a well known fact that the faculty of out IITs is far underpaid than their counterparts elsewhere in the world, so much so that the prestigious institutions are finding it difficult to retain them. To add insult to the injury, the new pay regime failed to recognize the genuine demands of the faculty cutting down on incentives and perks. 

This has raised hackles in the IIT fraternity with the IIT professors raising a banner of revolt in support of their demands. Faculties in IITS of Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai have even gone on a day’s token strike, a move which is unprecedented in the history of IITs. Let us analyze the work and pay of the IIT faculty in comparison to their foreign counterparts. 

The average monthly pay packet of a member of IIT faculty is Rs 50,000, while a professor at Harvard or Massachusetts Institute of Technology draws a whopping sum of Rs 5 to 6 lakh as a monthly salary.

In addition to their monthly pay, researchers in other countries get paid for publishing a paper which is called scholastic allowance. No such privilege is available to their poor cousins in India. The government simply turned down their demand for a scholastic allowance of Rs 15,000. 

Scholastic allowance is the one incentive that is crucial to ensure research work at a time when the IITs going through poor attrition rate in various departments.

In US, a professor’s annual pay comes to $115,509, as against a paltry sum of $12,000 that the Indian professor of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) gets annually. This gap in the salaries is too wide despite the fact that the cost of living in the US is higher.

Instead of correcting the anomaly the the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) chose to ignore the disparities in pay package approved by it under the Sixth Pay Commission. 

A professor at IIT Bombay, Saumya Mukherjee said: 

"The pay hike given by the government is at least 30 percent less at the lower level (of faculties) and at higher level it is 40 percent less than what we had asked for. It will be difficult for us to attract good faculty members." 

The HRD ministry is accused of overlooking the Goverdhan Mehta Committee report. The committee had proposed enhanced pay scales for IIT faculty. 

The following is the pay scales for various categories of faculty in the IITs:

• Lecturers or Lecturer-cum-Post-Doctoral Fellow: Rs.15, 600- 39,100; 

• Assistant Professors: Rs.30, 000 (minimum fixed);

• Associate Professors: Rs.37, 400-67,000, Rs.42, 800 (minimum fixed);

• Professors: Rs.37, 400-67,000, Rs 48,000 (minimum fixed). 

At a time when the IITs are facing the faculty crunch, the revised pay scales were the only hope to attract fresh talent and retain old hands. This opportunity too has been lost. Eight new IITs due to be launched soon need additional professors. Given the low pay packages, can the new IITs draw best hand in the field is anybody’s guess. 

If this is the reward for grooming the future of the nation putting in years of hard work, the best of brains in the country would be drawn to other lucrative offers. Don’t blame them for the brain drain. While money is not the whole thing, what matters is the recognition for their work which manifests itself in the pay packages.