It is decided by the government to pay higher salaries of Rs 67,000 to Rs 79,000 to up to 40 per cent of the professors in centrally supported technical institutes, including the IITs and the IIMs.

The move preserves, in a different way, a 40 per cent cap on higher pay that teachers had complaint against last year.

Under the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, in the central institutes professors were permitted to between Rs 37,400 and Rs 67,000 a month with a bonus grade pay of Rs 10,500 to Rs 12,000.

Yet there was a condition. At any position, only 40 per cent professors of an institute were to be qualified for the additional grade pay of Rs 12,000 a month, focus to their act.

But IIT teachers had been up in weapons against the condition because they felt the 40 per cent limit would differentiate against the young professors.

Once senior professors were selected for the Rs 12,000 grade pay, they would stay in the 40 per cent range till retirement. The younger professors would therefore be left out. Being annoyed by the pay policy Teachers at IIT Kharagpur had refused to hold classes last year.