Nearly a hundred professors at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)Kharagpur, participated in the hunger protest held at IITs across the country on Thursday, even though some professors could not participate because of vacations for the on-going Durga Puja celebrations.
The protest had been announced here on September 21 by Dr. M Thenmozhi, the president of the All India IIT Faculty Federation. The Federation has been protesting against certain restrictions imposed in a notification about the revised pay scale for the teachig and non-teaching staff of Centrally Funded Technical Institutions from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD).
However the IITs across the country have different academic schedules and the under-graduate students and many teachers here have already left for Puja vacations that began yesterday, said Dr. Shastri, vice president of the teachers association of IIT Kharagpur.
“But our intention is to make a peaceful agitation and we wanted to be a part of the collective effort,” Dr. Shastri said. Classes for the post-graduate students were held as per schedule on Thursday, he added.
Meanwhile, vacations for the Pujas have also stalled action to be taken by the faculty council of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC).
Unless a favourable announcement about the notification is made before September 29, the nearly 80 members of the faculty at IIMC will meet to decide the future course of action, said Dr. C Pandurang Bhatta, convenor of the faculty council.
“We are also hoping to take a combined action by including all the IIMs,” said Dr. Bhatta adding that the Director of IIMC, Dr. Shekhar Chaudhuri, had forwarded a copy of the memorandum he sent to the HRD Ministry in response to the August 18 notification, to the directors of all the IIMs.
