IIT Teachers Go On Hunger Strike On Pay Issues, Kapil Sibal Asks Them to Rethink
IIT, or Indian Institute of Technology, is a chain of about about a dozen specialized autonomous engineering and technology institutes in India. About 1500 teachers from this prestigious institute are going on a hunger strike from Thursday over the issue of pay structure. They are however not boycotting their classes. The IIT’s are located in Mumbai, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Chennai, Hyderabad, Patna, Rajasthan, Roorkee and some other places.
The All India IIT Faculty Federation went on the strike after the charter of their demands, which included withdrawal of 40 per cent cap on promotion of professors to senior grade, did not receive any response from the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (HRD).
The Federation president, Prof M Thenmozi of IIT-Madras, said: “We had asked for a meeting with the HRD Ministry representatives on the issue. But there is no response. Hence, we went on with the agitation”. The HRD Minister, Mr. Kapil Sibal had said the government wants to give more freedom to the over dozen institutes provided they come up with futuristic vision to achieve excellence.
Mr. Sibal said: “IITs are brand institutes. We respect them. We want to give them more freedom to achieve excellence. If they discuss their vision plan, we are ready to give them more autonomy” .
Mr. Sibal maintains that government would have to regulate the pay structure of IITs. But he said, it was not proper for professors of the elite institutions to resort to hunger strike and asked them to “rethink” on their planned agitation on Thursday.
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