7th Pay Commission for university, college teachers: HRD ministry forms panel to review UGC recommendations

The HRD Ministry has formed a committee to review the recommendations made by a UGC panel for college and university teachers, in line with seventh pay commission.

Ajeet Kumar

New Delhi: The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has formed a committee to review the recommendations made by a University Grants Commission (UGC) panel for college and university teachers, in line with Seventh Pay Commission.

"Seventh Pay Review committee for implementing the recommendations (of the 7th Pay Commission) in educational institutions, universities and colleges has submitted its report to the Ministry. I have constituted a committee headed by Higher education secretary to study them," Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday.

The committee will have officials from Finance Ministry and other relevant offices and it will submit its final recommendations which will go to Cabinet.

The development comes against the backdrop of teachers' associations of various universities threatening to go on strike over the "delay" in implantation after the UGC panel submitted its report earlier this year.

The 5-member UGC pay review committee, headed by it member VS Chauhan, which was formed last year, had in February recommended a 20 percent pay hike for university and college teachers.

It had also recommended scrapping ad-hoc and temporary appointments of teachers across universities.

A performance-linked promotion system had been suggested with stress on research with the retirement age unchanged at 65. The panel had suggested that the new salaries be paid with retrospective effect from January 2016.

According to the recommendations, a teacher's starting package will be revised by a multiplier of 2.72, applied to the basic salary and another component called academic grade pay (AGP).

For instance, a directly recruited professor who gets around Rs 43,000 as basic salary, Rs 10,000 as AGP and dearness allowance now will be entitled to a basic salary of Rs 1.44 lakh which would subsume the present dearness allowance.

Monthly salary for university/college teachers (in Rs)

Post	current starting pay	proposed pay
Professor	1,23,000	1,44,000
Associate Professor	1,07,000	1,26,000
Assistant Professor	50,000	59,000

-Figures include basic salary, academic grade pay and DA 

The Seventh Pay Commission, whose report was accepted last year for civil servants and other central staff, had used the 2.72 multiplier.

After including the HRA and other allowances depending on the cadre and the seniority, the overall salary of teachers is likely to go up around 30 percent if the suggestion is accepted by the HRD ministry.

University and college teachers had last month approached the Human Resource Development Ministry, questioning the delay in publication of the UGC’s Seventh Pay Review Committee recommendation.

The All India Federation of University and College Teachers’ Association (AIFUCTO), an umbrella body of teachers’ associations of various universities, had written to the Ministry, threatening a nationwide agitation if their demands were not met.