New Delhi, Aug 24 (IANS) In an unprecedented move, hundreds of faculty members of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) Bombay and Roorkee went on mass casual leave Monday to protest disparities in pay. Their peers in Delhi will follow suit Tuesday.
“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,” Saumya Mukherjee, professor at IIT-Bombay, told reporters.

Holding placards, the professors came out of the IIT-Bombay campus in a long line.

They said that to become a professor at any IIT, a student needs to have a PhD, which involves around six more years of study. This entails loss of income. Had they taken up a government job, they would have earned at least Rs.2.3 million, they claimed.

“The government is not even giving us the scholastic pay which is a compensation for the loss in earning,” said another professor from IIT-Bombay.

IIT-Roorkee director S.C. Saxena told IANS: “There is some dissatisfaction over the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations for our pay hike. I returned from abroad Monday morning and will discuss the issue with the faculty members.”

Meanwhile, IIT-Delhi professors have said they would be going on a mass casual leave Tuesday to protest the same issue.

There was a meeting of all IITs in Chennai Sunday. The decision to protest was also discussed there but it was left to the individual organisations of faculty members to protest the way they choose.

“You know the problem with our pay hike. There is dissatisfaction among many,” M. Balakrishnan, dean of post-graduate studies at IIT-Delhi, told IANS.

Similarly, at IIT-Guwahati faculty members are likely to go on a strike some time in the near future.

“There is disparity between the salary of an assistant and associate professor at IITs. The UGC scale for central university professors is more than for us. This is a key issue. There are other anomalies as well,” IIT-Guwahati director Gautam Barua told IANS over phone.

“After the Chennai meeting, the association sent a memorandum to the human resource development (HRD) ministry. We expect the ministry to respond soon. As the director of my institute, I hope there will be no protest but I cannot say this with surety. Faculty association of my institute may go on strike anytime,” he added.