Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
2008
Introduction
Education is the process or art of imparting knowledge, skills and judgment. Education tames the
astray mind, nurturing its capabilities the same way as training builds a clever dog. It is a
foundation for a preparation for meaningful life. It is aimed at the all round development of an
individual and dispels ignorance. Moreover, it is an essential ingredient in the development of an
individual as well as a nation. Academicians play an important role in the transmission of
knowledge and skills to students. The education has high impact on economic growth and social
development of a nation. For sustainable development, quality education should be provided not
only at the basic level but also at the higher education level. The wealth of a nation not just
depends on the economic power but also the skilled manpower it posses. Achievements in Science
and technology is also a barometer for the development of a nation. This results in a positive
societal transformation. As an example, Science and technology has been in the forefront of
transforming the Indian economic structure helping India evolve as a globally competitive
economic powerhouse. With the available scientific manpower--which is third largest in the world-
- the Indian science and technology has been growing well above world average. To achieve these
kind of growth, apart from constant effort of the governments, the contribution of the
academician’s` and the scientists in leading institutions played a major role. Due to this combined
effort, high end basic research and the development of cutting edge technologies to service the
technological requirement of a common man could be met in some extent. India is famous for
providing quality higher education through IITs, IISc, IIMs and other national institutions. The
academic pay in such institutions are very low compared to industry and similar institutions in the
other parts of the world. Academicians are responsible for creating technocrats but their pay is
very less compared to technocrats. In this report ,we analyze some of the problems faced by the
academicians and propose a suitable pay scale. There are lots of discussions taking place in
reviewing the pay scale of the academicians and I hope this study, made under the IIT system,
would help to reveal certain facts associated with the academic pay relevant in India. Even though
the study is conducted under IIT system, it is still applicable to academic institutions follows
similar structure. In the following sections, we would address these problems.
There was a demand for analyzing fresh PhD’s salary in industry against the entry level( that I
would assume at Assistant Professor level.) salary in IIT. The following figure shows the past 5
years average salary package(CTC), offered to PhD candidates by industry ( thanks to placement
office, IITM for providing the data). I have removed some outliers and approximated some
figures.
Note that every year, there is a 150% increase in the salary for a fresher. In general, in industry,
there is 15% to 20% increase of salary every year. We assume that there is a 15% hike in salary
every year in industry. If this is the case, with 2007 as the base year, the next 12 years projection
would be the following.
How much is the annual salary of an IIT faculty under the existing pay scale?
Existing pay : Table II
Certainly one cannot expect such an increase in salary in government sector. My analysis is
applicable only for IIT/IISc community / other academic institution provides accommodation in
the campus with similar features. While analyzing the pay package, we would also try to find out
whether “we paid less at the entry level or at the senior level?”.
By senior level, I do mean by counting the number of years of experience at any level. The
analysis is given below. In this analysis, I make the following assumptions.
• Working location is IIT Chennai.. This is because the living expense in terms of
accommodation is little bit high in Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore and less in Guwahati,
Kharagpur and other cities.
• I would also fix the monthly rent of a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment is 15500 in Chennai.
• All are staying in the campus
• All avail the full amount of telephone reimbursement and book grant.
• License fee is fixed at Rs.500 for availing quarters through out all levels for ease of
computation.
If we look at the variable pay component, Part I, Total(a), there is an average of 8.5% increase in
salary every year. Taking an average salary of these two years, the average salary at the assistant
professor level is around 40000. i.e. around 5. lakhs per annum. Is that bad? I haven’t taken into
account children’s education pay, member ship fee, LTC etc. But where is the problem? If you
look at the Grand Total per annum, which I would call as Cost to the Government(CTG) or Cost
to the Institute(CTI), there is approximately 8.2% increase in salary at the Assistant Professor
level every year. If we consider the base year as 2007 with 5lakhs CTG, after 5 years annual salary
at the Assistant Professor level would be 7.4 lakhs and after 10 years it would be around 11 lakhs.
These figures never match with industrial salary, which are 16 lakhs and 32 lakhs respectively.
The above analysis shows that entry level salary is not so bad but when you get experienced your
salary is not growing in par with industry. If we analyze the salary at the Associate and Professor
level( Refer Table IV and Table V below), we can see that variable component is growing less
than that of Assistant professor level and CTG growth is less than 8.2%. Assuming that a person
gets the promotion after 5 years to Associate level or to Professor level after 10 years starting his
career at the Assistant Professor level, the salary getting in academics is far less than the industry.
That means, even a person gets promoted to the higher level, his salary is not going to match with
industrial pay. These problems should be addressed in the revised pay scale.
But can we compare an apple with a jackfruit? An apple must be compared only with an apple. If
we look at the salary of academic job at the international level , it is around $50000 to $60000 per
annum at the Assistant Professor level, around $75000-$80000 Associate level and it could be
even more than $100000 at the Professor level. Taking the approximate salary as 50K, 75K and
100K respectively at these levels, we have the following figures. (Usually Dollar: Rupee is 4:1. )
Assistant Prof. : = 12.5K ( around 5 lakhs). Associate Prof. := 18.75K( 7.5 lakhs) and Prof. := 25k
( around 10 lakhs). I don’t have an idea about other benefits offered at these positions. Adding
approximately 2 lakhs per annum as other benefits offered, the approximate pay at the
international level could be 7 lakhs at Assistant, 9.5 lakhs at Associate and 12 lakhs at the Full
professor level.( I found this pay is around 10 lakhs, 13 lakhs and 15 lakhs respectively in some
places). Taking into account the inflation, the ratio between USD and INR as 3:1, the estimated
salary could match approximately with the above figures.
Can we get the same pay under the revised pay scale?
As per revised pay, the projected salary at the Assistant Professor level in next 12 years is given
below.
The projected salary at the Associate Professor level in next 12 years is given below.
All these analysis shows that academic pay in IIT’s neither match with the industry nor with the
academics salary at the international level. So we must revise the salary under 6th pay scale.
By keeping the basic pay of the Assistant Professor at the starting pay of PB4, 37400 which is
3.12 times that of the existing basic pay and one needs to subsequently revise the pay scale of
Associate Professor and Professor.
If we look at the revised pay scale of higher ups ( For eg. President, Vice President, Governor
etc.), we can see that revised salary is three times the existing salary. So there is no harm in
proposing 3.12 times salary for IIT faculty. This is equivalent to pushing the existing salary of
Assistant to revised pay of Associate, Associate to the revised pay of Professor, Professor to
revised pay scale of senior professor and Director to the revised pay scale of Cabinet secretary
level. Taking Table XI into account, the proposed salary at the Assistant Professor level could be:
Note that the above package is in par with international standard and equally competent with the
industry salary up to tenth year.
What IIT’s should do to attract and retain talents? Suggestions and Conclusion
1. Each IIT should project the CTG or CTI along with the basic pay while advertising for
faculty position to attract people at the entry level.
2. In order to keep the existing faculty in its fold,
(a) Relax the rules on sabbatical so that a faculty could work else where (industry or
academics) of his/her choice. This would enable a faculty to uplift his/her
financial status in the society in par with the industrial counterpart in addition to
the knowledge that he gains by working elsewhere.
(b) Promote entrepreneurship among faculties
(c) Introduce more non-taxable incentives.
(d) Allow internal transfer among IITs. This not only helps to keep the faculty in IIT
community folder but also effectively utilizing his/her expertise in other sister
concerns.
(e) Relax the rules to generate money through consultancy work
3. In case, there is a problem of fixing basic pay as proposed, Part-II component in the CTG
calculation should be adjusted by offering additional incentives in such a way that CTG or
CTI should be in par with the proposed CTG.
Remark: In my analysis, I haven’t taken into account the qualitative and stability part because it is
more or less a subjective matter. My emphasis was on the quantitative side. Of course, quality is
one of the variables that have a relationship with quantity and the philosophy is: How much one
worth depends on how good he is! However, commenting on the qualitative aspect, we know that
many multinationals are coming into India because they know that they would get quality people
with cheap rate. So I assumed that IIT hires only quality people and that meets the international
standard.
************END OF THE REPORT************