IIT Professors succeeded to convince directors and Prime Minister's principal secretary TKA Nair about their concern of flexibility.

The IIT faculty on Saturday managed to convince the directors and Prime Minister's principal secretary TKA Nair that without flexibility the IIT system will lose it's novelty.

While the directors agreed to set up two committees to look into their demands, Nair promised to convey the concerns of the faculty to PM Manmohan Singh.

After a fruitful meeting with the directors, the faculty members met Nair in the evening and told him that there is an apprehension in IITs about losing flexibility. "Flexibility has allowed IITs to achieve so many things. We should be allowed to retain that," M Thenmozhi, president of the All India IIT Faculty Federation told TOI.

She said Nair was also appraised about the faculty's meeting with HRD minister Kapil Sibal and IIT directors. She said, "We also told him that it is important that a better pay package be given at the entry level to attract the best talent."

In the three-hour-long meeting of faculty federation with IIT directors, it was decided that the first committee would evolve the criterion for promotion of 40% professors to the senior grade. The second committee would evolve the modalities for implementation of the Performance Related Incentive Scheme.

As for the three years' mandatory experience for the job of assistant professors, it has been decided that the IIT directors will bring up the issue in the meeting of the IIT Council that will take place on October 19. A whole gamut of issues, including medical facilities for the teachers after retirement and improving the number of foreign students in IITs, will be discussed in the council meeting.

Stressing that the faculty and directors are not at loggerheads, director of IIT-Kanpur Sanjay Dhande said the committee that would look into the promotion of professors is likely to submit its report in four to six weeks and the committee on PRIS would come up with its recommendations in two months.

After meeting the representatives of Faculty Federation, Dhande said the recommendations of the first committee would form the basis on which a "professor will move from Rs 10,500 academic grade pay to Rs 12,000 academic grade pay". Dhande said steps would be taken to ensure that bright young people join IIT faculty.

The IIT faculty has been saying that the provision for contractual appointment at the entry level will not attract young people to join the faculty.

"We want to have young people. We have been attracting the best talent so far and should continue to do so," Dhande said.

President of IIT Delhi Faculty Forum Prof S S Murthy demanded that the academic grade pay of the IIT faculty, which was slashed by Rs 500 after the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission, should be restored. "Though it would be a mere gesture, it would nonetheless be a big thing for the IIT faculty," he said.

Source : Times of India.