Hike for central govt teachers, Centre to bear only 50% cost for hike of state govt teachers

The Union government Thursday approved the Seventh Pay Commission's reccommended hike in the pay of teachers in central higher education institutes. At the same time the Centre will contribute less in implementing the hike proposed for state universities and colleges.

For higher education institutes run by state governments, the Centre will bear only 50% of the additional burden for the first 51 months. After the initial 51 months, the states will bear the entire cost.

When the previous pay panel recommendations were implemented about a decade ago, the Centre had borne 80% of the additional expenditure in the states.

The All India Federation of University and College Teachers Organisations (AIFUCTO), which represents six lakh state government-run college and university teachers, expressed doubts over whether all states would implement the revised package or not.

AIFUCTO General Secretary Arun Kumar told Catch, “Many fund-starved states may not implement the package, at least not right away. The Centre should be bearing 100% additional cost or not less than 80%. The central universities teachers will be able to benefit right away, but not the state university teachers.”

But Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said in his statement, “Under the 14th Finance Commission, the state governments have been provided additional funding. That is why the central share has gone down. They can implement it.”

Given this announcement, the additional annual central liability will be around Rs 9,800 crore, including Rs 8,400 crore to the states.

Meanwhile, the pay of faculty members in central universities, colleges, IITs, IIMs, NITs, IISERs and IIITs is expected to go up in the range of 22 to 28%.

For example:

– The monthly salary of assistant professors will likely increase from Rs 47,000 to Rs 57,700

– Salary of assistant professor grade II will increase from Rs 56,000 to Rs 68,000

– Senior assistant professor will now get a salary of Rs 80,000 from Rs 65,000

– Associate professors will now get Rs 1,31,000 from Rs 1,07,000

– Professors will now get Rs 1,44,000 from Rs 1,16,000

– Senior professors salaries’ will now be Rs 1,82,000 from Rs 1,46,000

– Vice Chancellors will now earn Rs 2,25,000 from Rs 1,75,000

If all states implement the new package, nearly 7.58 lakh teachers will benefit. The raise will be with retrospective effect from 1 January 2016, and the teachers will receive the hiked salaries in the form of arrears.

The teachers will be also eligible for additional dearness allowance as declared by the government over the revised pay.

However, not all teachers' associations are satisfied with the government's announcement.

Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) President Rajib Ray told Catch, “While we welcome Union Cabinet's long overdue decision to approve Pay Revision for University and College Teachers, there are many anomalies that the government needs to tend to. As of now, the DUTA continues to view the government's secrecy in decision-making with skepticism and apprehension. University and college teachers are apprehensive about the long list of pay-related anomalies that had arisen from the previous pay revision and are yet to be resolved.”

“The DUTA also appeals to the government to release the dearness relief for pensioners at the earliest since it has not been released for the last two installments. It urges the Union government to also immediately approve the pay revision of the non-teaching employees of the universities and the colleges without any further delay to mitigate their financial hardships to some extent,” Ray added.

The government has made no decision on revising pay package for non-teaching staff in the central or state universities and colleges, yet.

Ray added, “Teachers are also apprehensive about their service conditions that have been altered to their detriment in the last pay revision, with the introduction of the Academic Points Indicators (API) for career advancement and promotions.”

Ray explained that the API system has denied promotions to the largest section of employees with disastrous consequences for the standards of higher education. The negative turn in service conditions during the last few years is also indicated by the loss of teachers' parity with Group A services in terms of pay and emoluments, and the devious attempts made by the UGC to downsize faculty by increasing the number of lecture-hours per week per teacher, Ray said.

“Such moves will worsen the student-teacher ratio in university departments and colleges. The DUTA urges the UGC and government to transparently finalise all details to the satisfaction of the teaching community and in the interest of quality higher education, at the earliest,” he added.

Edited by Jhinuk Sen