$1 lakh per yr pay for faculty of Indian origin

The department of science and technology and the planning commission has finalised a package to attract some of the well-known names in the world of science to Indian institutes as part of its new 'brain-gain' policy. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 11, 2013, 02:23:58 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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An annual salary of $1 lakh per annum is in the offing for foreign faculty of the Indian origin to work in some of the leading science institutes.

The department of science and technology and the planning commission has finalised a package to attract some of the well-known names in the world of science to Indian institutes as part of its new "brain-gain" policy expected to be unveiled by finance minister P Chidambaram in this year's budget.

"We want to hire at least 15 faculty members from best universities in the coming year," said a senior planning commission official. A provision of Rs 15 crore would be made in the department's budget for the financial year 2013-14.

The official said role of the foreign faculty would not only be teach but also to mentor the institutions in a bid to inculcate new concepts of science education and research. "The aim is to bring a culture change," the official said.

Getting the proposal through was not easy as similar bids of the Indian Institutes of Technology had failed to take off because of resistance from the ministry of home affairs. The IITs wanted a work visa for five-years, which the home ministry was not willing to issue.

The government has been able to get around this technical issue with the Plan panel deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia getting the home ministry on board.

The package to be offered would be for a year and extendable by another four years. "The ministry has no objection in granting teaching visa for a year," an official said. The package would also provide for accommodation within the campus and personal staff.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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