Gifting a Christmas and New Year bonanza to displeased university and college teachers, the Centre has approved the recommendation of an empowered committee – set up to review the Chadha Committee proposal – for reforming the pay structure of higher education teachers.

Wooing to over five lakh higher educators across the country in an election-year, the Union Cabinet on December 15, 2008 has approved the proposal of the committee in the presented form, which suggests enhancement of teacher’s salary nearby 70 percent excluding other emoluments.

Announcing the details of approved pay revision on Tuesday (Dec 16), Minister of State in the Ministry of Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari told the Parliament that salary was one of the critical factors in higher education sector that was affecting the quality of education and unable to attract the young and talented person to the teaching profession.

Viewing this, the government has decided to restore the dignity and pride of the teachers for joining teaching profession, said HRD minister for state and added ‘I hope and agree that this is a significant step towards that goal.’

On the sequel of the Sixth Pay Commission, the University Grant Commission (UGC) had set up a pay review committee under the Chairmanship of Prof. G K Chadha, Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, on September 06, 2007 to review and reform the pay structure enable to attract and freeze young and talented people in this profession.

According to approved recommendation, the HRD Ministry has decided to retain only three designations in colleges and Universities: Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors from now on, while the current running posts of Lecturers and Readers would be remain unaffected until the employees of these posts get promotion to the post of Associate Professors following the established norms of UGC.

Now, the term ‘Academic Grade Pay’ (AGP) would be used for academicians’ salary in the place of ‘Grade Pay’ (GP) used for Central government employees, suggested pay revision committee.

Different AGP has been fixed for teachers and employees of equivalent positions of Rs. 6,000, Rs.7,000, Rs. 8,000, Rs.9,000, Rs.10,000 and Rs.12,000. Assistant professors at the entry level have been placed in the Pay Band of Rs. 15,600-39,100 entering at the AGP of Rs. 6,000, while associate professors with AGP of Rs. 9,000 have placed in the pay band of Rs. 37,400-67,000. A professor with 10 years experience has been placed at the highest level of AGP of Rs. 12,000.

A Ph.D holder teacher can get fastest promotion from the post of assistant professor to associate professor after the completion of a 12-year service as an assistant professor, working four years at AGP of Rs. 6000, five years at AGP of Rs. 7000 and three years at the AGP of Rs. 8000. The ministry has also reported that a postgraduate professional course teacher having M Phil can become Associate Professor after completing 13 years of job while those lacking Ph.D. or M.Phil can become Associate Professor after 14 years of service as assistant professor.

Now, National Eligibility Test (NET) will be essential for being Assistant Professor while those currently employed without qualifying NET will be remain unaffected, but this condition will not be applicable for such Masters’ programmes for which NET is not available.

The equality among teachers, librarians and directors of physical education will continue except the retirement age, as the librarians/physical education personnel will continue to get retirement after 62 years of age.

This salary approval will not applicable to Registrars, Finance Officer, Controller of Examinations, Deputy Registrars and their equivalent posts; there will be a separate approval to be granted later by the Cabinet.

The State Universities are also eligible to implement this pay approval either equivalent or higher in their state and get 80% of finance assistant from UGC for additional expenditure on implementing revise pay scale package and other expenses, stated HRD ministry.

The financial assistance for revised payment to the state universities will be granted for the period of January 01, 2006 to March 31, 2010, while state universities can implement the same as the date mentioned or later. However, the allowance excluding Dearness Allowance (DA) and other advance increment will be effective from September 01, 2008.