IIT faculty on hunger protest for autonomy of the institution

New Delhi, Sep 24(ANI): Over 1,000 faculty members of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) went on a hunger protest on Thursday to protest the anomalies in the recently announced pay structure and demanding greater autonomy for the institutions.

Though they were on protest, the faculty members did take classes and attended seminars.

President of IIT Faculty Federation Delhi chapter, M. Balakrishnan said that the fast is to demand sovereignty for the Institute.

"This hunger protest that IIT's faculty is observing while performing all their academic duties is primarily related to autonomy of the elite institution," Balakrishnan said.

Students at the institution were out in full support to their faculty and urged the Government to come up with a solution.

"We will support this protest, we will stand behind our teachers. They are fighting to save the honour of this institution, and we urge the Government to fulfill their demands," said Abhishekh Rastogi, student of Department of Civil Engineering.

Aman Bakshi, a student from the same department, said: "If the new guidelines are accepted, no student will come back to teach at the institution."

The HRD Ministry had, earlier, refused to accept the faculty's demands and also opposed the demand of ending the contractual recruitment of teaching staff at the entry level.

However, the government had come up with a revised pay package for the faculty of IITs.

The decision to demonstrate by fasting was taken at a meeting of the All India Indian Institutes of Technology Faculty Federation (AIIITFF) held at IIT Kharagpur's extension centre in Kolkata on Monday.

The faculties have also come up with a deadline of October 1 to the HRD Ministry for meeting their demand. (ANI)