OCAP salary at IIT-Guwahati: Gautam Barua responds

Prof. Gautam Barua, Director, IIT-G, has left a comment on my previous post on OCAP salary at his institution. I am reproducing below his comment in full:

I am surprised at all these comments. First of all, please dont blame me for what a reporter has written. Of course I meant the basic pay when I said Rs 22,000-23,000. To this you have to add grade pay of 7000/- and to the total you have to add a)DA of 27%, b) SDA of 12.5% (this is only for IITG, being in the NE region), and c) 400/- of SCA. This adds up to Rs. 40,275.00 (gross, without house rent allowance). I never told the reporter that this is a bad pay. I had told her that the fact that we cannot offer a rgular job up front is a bummer. But we (IITG) are getting around this by making a regular offer which will be three years later (if you have just submitted your PhD), with the intervening three years on contract. This is like three years of probation. Compared to a tenure track appointment for 5-7 years, in the USA, this is much better.

As far as comments about IITG being regional, etc., what can I say, except to strongly refute such comments from one ex-faculty (presumably)who is trying to rationalise to himself why he left IITG. Our selection process is one of the most liberal (being a relatively new IIT, this should be obvious) in terms of number of years, but there is no compromise on standards, and we have fiar and transparent selections, I am proud to say. Talking about regionalism when only about 20% of the faculty are from the NE region is in poor taste (check what the figures are in IITKGP, IITM etc.)

In his e-mail, he says we should add a transport allowance of Rs. 2,032/-, which would bring the total starting salary for an OCAP at IIT-G to 42,307/- -- without house rent allowance.

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Some observations and clarifications, in light of what Barua has written:

First of all, I thank Prof. Barua for his response.

1. The second paragraph of his response is related to what some others (mostly anonymous commenters) had written. I won't address that part here.

2. I'll address only the first paragraph, which is a direct response to my post.

   He says:

   Of course I meant the basic pay when I said Rs 22,000-23,000.

   I did consider this possibility -- that he was referring to the band pay in his statement -- so it's good to have it confirmed. Potential IIT-G faculty applicants now have a clearer picture of what they are likely to get as OCAPs.

3. He also says:

   I never told the reporter that this is a bad pay. I had told her that the fact that we cannot offer a [regular] job up front is a bummer.

   It certainly is; we can all see it, without it being explicitly stated. It follows directly from the salary figures.

4. He then adds:

   But we (IITG) are getting around this by making a regular offer which will be three years later (if you have just submitted your PhD), with the intervening three years on contract. This is like three years of probation. Compared to a tenure track appointment for 5-7 years, in the USA, this is much better.

   I read this stuff several times, and I'm still wondering what "getting around this" means here. [Update: Prof. Barua clarifies this point in his comment below.]

5. One final point: He asks me not to blame him "for what a reporter has written."

   While I do appreciate this suggestion / advice / admonition, I just want to mention here that I did confirm with Pallavi that the statement attributed to him in her report was a direct quote -- just as I did confirm with him about whether that comment was indeed written by him.