Ahmedabad: Over the past few weeks professors across the country teaching at IITs and IIMs have been protesting in public and in private, demanding among other things pay hikes and greater autonomy of their institutions.
Now NDTV has learnt that at least the IIMs may soon have their way.
The boards of individual IIMs may soon be allowed to decide how much they want to pay their teachers.
NDTV has learnt that the HRD Ministry is considering a proposal to allow IIMs to alter their Memorandum of Association. A change in the MoA is necessary for IIM Boards to get the power to decide on what to pay their professors.
"The MoAs of IIMs and MoUs of IITs clearly say that government can only decide pay packets for faculty members...unless these MoAs are changed, power cant be transferred to IIMs or IITs," says Dr Bakul Dholakia, former Director of IIM Ahmedabad.
A change in the MoA will give the richer IIMs access to better staff.
The IIMs say they have lost good talent to other private players who pay on par with western institutes like Harvard and Wharton.
Currently the IIMs have just over 65 per cent of the faculty they need to run their courses. With seven new IIMs being planned, manpower and the money to attract it - is clearly on everyone's mind.
Dr Anil Gupta, Senior Faculty, IIMA, says, "The Ministry should have ideally allowed existing IIMs, at least the bigger ones like us to set up new campuses within the country. This could have helped in sharing existing faculty strength and maximum utilisation of available manpower."
With professors at IIMs and IITs across the country taking up various forms of protest, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal is certainly feeling the pressure. In the past his predecessors - Murli Manhor Joshi and Arjun Singh, have rejected their demands. But Sibal, it appears, is all set to make a significant departure.