IITs cannot pay their salaries now!

There is something wrong in the entire picture… in this term, Dr. Manmohan Singh has really disturbed my sensibility!  Honestly.  For a person who so highly values education, to have the highest institutions of one’s own land go downhill so spectacularly is difficult to explain!  This is what happened under his beat:

1. More and More IIMs and IITs were created, thus diluting the brand and the standards!
2. Reservations were pushed on the elitist of institutions!

and now the worst of all – IITs do not have enough money to pay the salaries of their teachers!  In fact IIT-Bombay will not be able to pay its salaries NEXT MONTH!!  Ask yourself, what is the incentive and motivation for these professors to keep teaching in these institutions?  The guys who teach courses to GET INTO IITs in Kota make Rs 5 million to Rs 10 million a year.. just preparing students!  Why would these teachers teach at fraction of those salaries?  Doesn’t it sound ludicrous?

In an indication of a fund crunch at India’s finest educational institutes, IIT-Bombay has recently written to the HRD ministry that they are not in a position to pay next month’s salaries to their staff members. All seven institutes have complained that government allocations are not keeping pace with the rising costs attached to the day-to-day running of these premier institutions.

Interestingly and sadly, the alumni of these great institutions who have scaled great heights overseas have hardly ever cared to push this Government in the right direction!  Its time for Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (or Expat Indian Day), its time when these guys can come and show some strength.  But, would they?  Would they come out of their comfort zone and say, enough is enough!  Let us manage these places at lesser the cost and better pays!  Come to think of it, if these professors could do consulting and patent and then use their inventions, these places could be stinking rich!  If IITs could be handled better… I see no reason why IIT will not be on the list of every American child wanting to go to an engineering school after high school as an option!  Why shouldn’t it be?  Nalanda taught us that the more cosmopolitan the crowd, the better is the result!  At the very least we could learn from our ancestors if not the successful of today!