COIMBATORE: The AICTE’s revised pay scale, which fixes the entry-level salary of an assistant professor at Rs 57,000, has annoyed engineering college authorities in TN.
They cite dwindling admission rates and government’s cap on fees collected from students as reasons for not being able to implement the pay revision.
On March 1, the AICTE released its new pay structure for teaching and non-teaching faculty, which also imposes a salary ceiling of Rs 1.8 lakh for senior professors.
The revised pay scale is to be implemented retrospectively, from January 1, 2016. “Only 45 per cent of sanctioned seats in colleges get filled up,” claimed the chairman of one college. “Besides, Tamil Nadu has fixed the fees at Rs 50,000 for government seats and Rs 85,000 for management quota seats. So, it would be impossible to pay the faculty as per the revised structure. At least, the government and AICTE must consider our proposal to fix the fee at Rs 1.47 lakh as suggested by Justice Sri Krishna committee,” he said.
Boost for quality
Experts point out that increasing the pay structure will benefit students as professionals with higher qualifications are likely to consider teaching as a viable profession