Seventh Pay Commission benefits extended to university teachers

The union cabinet on Wednesday approved revised pay scales for teachers and equivalent academic staff in universities and colleges and centrally funded technical institutions, as per the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission for central government employees.

The decision will benefit about 8 lakh teachers and other similarly placed staff in higher educational institutions under the purview of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and centrally-funded technical institutions.

With the cabinet decision, 7.58 lakh teachers of central and state universities and aided colleges will get the benefits of the 7th Pay Commission.

Around 58,000 professors of 213 central universities, including IITs, will get full funding from the centre, said Prakash Javadekar, union minister for human resource development.

The minister said the higher pay and benefits will help attract talent into academics and improve the quality of education in the country, adding that seven lakh professors, assistant and associate professors in aided colleges and state universities will get the benefits.

States will get the centre's support and all the benefits will be paid from 1 January 2016, Javadekar said. The annual financial liability on account of this measure would be about Rs9,800 crore.

The centre will bear Rs1,400 crore per year on this, while states will have to pay out an additional Rs8,400 crore

''We must give a good salary package so that the existing talent is retained in the academic sector, compared to attractive packages in the industry,'' said Javadekar.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister for law and information technology, said teaching staff of 119 technical institutions, including IITs, IIITs, IIMs, NITs and IISERS, will also get this benefit.

The implementation of this pay revision will enhance the teachers' pay in the range of Rs10,400 and Rs49,800 as against the extant entry pay due to the implementation of the 6th Central Pay Commission for the pay of teachers. This revision would raise the pay at the entry level in the range of 22 per cent to 28 per cent.

For the state government funded institutions, the revised pay scales will require adoption by the respective state governments.