At the outset, let me address the utterances of Prof. M. Thenmozhi:

A report in Business Standard attributes two statements to Prof. Thenmozhi:

1. She says "IIT professors manage a lot of administrative work, for no extra money, a task UGC professors are not required to do."

I am not aware of work load of IIT Professors as the guidelines are not available in public domain. Perhaps they teach for 4-12 hours per week, in addition to the administrative work and research. I have even seen a professor at IITM who does not teach even one course during even semester. However, for a UGC Professor, the workload should not be less than 40 hours a week for 30 working weeks (180 teaching days) in an academic year.  It should be necessary for the teacher to be available for at least 5 hours daily in the University / College. The 40 hours work load per week involves (only) 14 hours of direct teaching [1]. What does a UGC Professor do for 40-14=26 hours per week? Just hanging around?

2. She also says "Under the flexible cadre system, which we have been following so long, we could appoint and promote faculty depending on their performance, irrespective of their age and experience per se. For instance, many brilliant lecturers and PhDs could become professors by their early thirties"

Can she substantiate this by providing data on the age of youngest-full-professor in IIT system? What is the number of faculty-members-in-early-thirties, who have been promoted as full professors till date? I never heard of a full-professor in his / her early thirties in India, that too in IITs! If we consider 12 years of schooling, 4 years of Bachelor's degree (in engineering), 2 years of master's degree, 3 years of Ph.D, 1 year post doc, and 4 years each at the level of assistant professor and associate professor, one will be 36 by the time he / she becomes a full professor! 

It appears IIT faculty have also picked holes in Sibal's ideas! Unfortunately there are several holes in the original holes picked by AIIITFF! The deepest hole has been picked up, again, by Prof. Thenmozhi! In response to the remarks by Mr. Sibal on salary being only ‘icing on the cake’ for IIT faculty because of their large consultancy earnings, Prof. Thenmozhi said "Any consultancy earnings that accrue to a few of them are fair compensation for their additional work for specific clients. In any case, a large proportion of the total consultancy earnings of these few faculty actually goes back to the Institute and to the government as income tax."

Then why ask for a salary hike at all? In any case, a large proportion of the hiked salary actually goes back to the Institute and to the government as income tax! 

Prof. Thenmozhi as well as the AIIITFF have pointed out that "there were anomalies in the MHRD’s statement on promotions during a professor’s academic career. A person with a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent in engineering or a post-graduate degree or equivalent in arts, commerce, humanities, sciences or social sciences is eligible to join any university as a regular assistant professor and is eligible for ‘promotion’ to the post of associate professor in a minimum period of 12 years through his ‘career progression’ after obtaining the required additional educational qualifications while in service. Many such faculty obtain their PhDs in the IITs under the quality improvement programme while in service. To compare such a faculty with an IIT faculty who is directly recruited at any level, is a pointer to glaring anomalies”.

The AIIITFF has got a misconception here. A Bachelor's degree in engineering is not enough to join any university as a regular assistant professor. Before drafting the questionnaire to MHRD, the AIIITFF should have checked the eligibility criteria in the UGC Regulations (please see Ref. 1).

What is wrong if a faculty from any university obtain his/her Ph.D. from IITs under quality improvement programme (QIP)? The eligibility criteria for the selection and the rules and regulations for QIP scholars are no different from those of a regular Ph.D. scholar! You can check the ordinances of IITM here (pdf). Just because a UGC faculty joins the Ph.D. programme at IITs under the QIP category, can you condemn him/her? What if he/she were to resign and join IITs for Ph.D.?

What if a UGC faculty chooses to take a study leave of 3 years, joins IITs for Ph.D. (albeit under regular category), go back to his/her university after completion of Ph.D. serve the bond period or pay the money and get rid of the bond-executed, and finally join IITs as a faculty? Would the AIIITFF hail such faculty members? I know quite a few faculty members of this category in IITs. Is Ph.D. from some other university, say University of Madras, better than IIT Ph.D. (under QIP scheme)?

If AIIITFF admits that the quality of their own Ph.D. programme (be it QIP or whatever) is poor, what is the basis for asking a salary hike? Shouldn't they improve the quality of Ph.D. programme before seeking a salary hike?

[1] Item No. 21 on page 60 in this UGC Regulations (pdf).