NITs want same pay as IITs, meets Sibal.

he National Institutes of Technology have demanded pay parity with faculty of Indian Institutes of Technology under a proposed salary regime that will enable them to compete for top teachers.

NIT directors rejected a differential pay structure between their institutes and the IITs proposed by a central pay panel at a meeting with human resource development minister Kapil Sibal last week, officials said.

The meeting was slated as a courtesy call on Sibal, HRD ministry sources said. “But it transformed into a forum for the directors to demand that their faculty are not ready to accept lower pay than the IITs,” an official said.

The demand follows recommendations of the pay panel for central technical institutes, headed by former Indian Institute of Science director Goverdhan Mehta. It suggested continuing with the different pay structures.

The IITs, India’s premier engineering schools, have traditionally enjoyed better pay for their faculty than the NITs and other top central engineering institutions, including four Indian Institutes of Information Technology.

But the NITs, which also hold the tag of “Institutes of National Importance” like the IITs, argue that the government must no longer discriminate between different institutions it funds.

“Jawaharlal Nehru University may have a better reputation than some other central varsities, but the same pay scales hold for all central universities. There is no reason why the system should be different in technical education,” an NIT director said.

The NITs also argue that lower pay scales prevent them from competing with the IITs for top teachers, propelling them into a “vicious cycle” where they can never hope to catch up with the IITs in quality.

The NITs had asked for equal pay during discussions with the Mehta committee on the salary review, according to the panel’s report.

Panel members point out that their report has recommended a hike in pay for faculty of all institutes, including the NITs. “It is natural for people to differ in their opinions on our report, but we believe we have given teachers across all institutions a wonderful deal,” Mehta said.

Another member argued that the different faculty structures at the IITs and the NITs make it “impossible” for their pay structures to be common.

The IITs have a four-tier faculty structure, with lecturers at the bottom of the rung followed by assistant professors, associate professors and professors.

The NITs have a three-tier structure. The Mehta panel has recommended that entrants to the NITs be called assistant professors, with associate professors and professors above them.

The panel has recommended identical salaries for IIT lecturers and NIT assistant professors. It has suggested that NIT associate professors receive pay that falls in between the salaries of IIT assistant professors and associate professors.

Professors at the NITs are placed on a par with associate professors of the IITs, according to the suggested pay structure.

Source : The Telegraph, Kolkata.