Pay woes: IIT Madras faculty begins protest

The faculty of IIT-Madras began a nine-day protest in Chennai on Thursday against 'delay' in implementing the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations and warned of intensifying the agitation if the government failed to take cognisance of their protest.

"If the government does not respond to this protest, we have decided to take to other forms of protest such as going on mass casual leave and even staging hunger strike,"  M Thenmozhi, president, IIT-M Faculty Association, told PTI.

She said they have started the strike by wearing black badges while on duty from Thursday to August 14.

Around 450 members from IIT-M, besides the other seven IITs in the country, are resorting to the black badge protest, she said.

The association said on Wednesday that the present IIT pay-scales were neither commensurate with the required qualifications nor enough to attract fresh talent,even to well established IITs and that the faculty are 'frustrated with the inordinate delay' in implementing the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

They had warned they would have to take recourse to more 'forceful and dignified' forms of protest if the government continued to ignore their demand.