IIT faculty ends standoff

The standoff between the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry and the IIT faculty finally came to an end  with the Ministry announcing that its pay notification order was in “nature of norms” and had “enough flexibility” to “deviate from the existing norms in exceptional cases to promote excellence”.

Sibal said the Ministry had no ideological position on the issue and this flexibility would be there across all stipulations in the pay order like in case of the 40 per cent cap on professors’ promotion to a higher pay grade which, he said, would be revisited when the cap was reached.

There was flexibility and possibility of relaxation of rules regarding the contract-based entry system. In case there was no faculty available for a certain course under the existing rules, relaxing them would be permissible with the approval of IIT boards, he said.

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