New Delhi, Nov. 5: IIT Kharagpur has shown the way how the premier tech schools can get around a payment ceiling to attract foreign teachers as visiting faculty, courtesy an alumnus who made the “top-up” plan possible.

The Indian Institute of Technology, the country’s oldest IIT, today launched an international programme with a corpus of Rs 10 crore donated by Gopal Rajgarhia, the alumnus.

The interest generated from the corpus — which works out to a little less than Rs 1 crore a year — will be utilised to “top up” the payment for visiting foreign teachers, beyond the monthly limit of $1,250 now in place.

Under government norms, the tech institutes are allowed to pay up to $15,000 a year to a visiting foreign teacher, that is someone who has not been hired on a regular basis. This means an IIT can pay $1,250 (approximately Rs 75,000, according to current exchange rates) to a visiting teacher from abroad if he or she spends a month at the institute.

“Foreign faculty are reluctant to come under this payment system. They want the equivalent of what they are getting in their country. Now the IIT will get about Rs 1 crore in (yearly) interest, which it can use to top up the remuneration,” said a senior official at IIT Kharagpur.

A minimum salary guideline for hiring foreign teachers on a regular basis is also in place. According to this guideline — aimed at protecting mid-level jobs for Indians — foreigners can be appointed only for high-end jobs and work permits are not given to those who would get a salary of less than $14,000 (approximately Rs 8.4 lakh) a year.

Sources said the Shri Gopal Rajgarhia International Programme would help IIT Kharagpur reach out to foreign faculty. The institute is in talks with eminent teachers at some of the leading universities in the US, UK and Australia. They can come for about four weeks every year for four to five years, the IIT official said.

The tech school also has plans for student-exchange programmes, under which PhD scholars could visit foreign universities for research, the official said.

Arjun Malhotra, an alumnus of the IIT, said the tech school’s initiative would help improve its global ranking. One criterion international ranking agencies use is peer statement. This involves asking eminent teachers to comment on a specific institution.

Indian institutions mainly collaborate among themselves.

“Once the foreign faculty come and spend a certain time in the institute, the academic ambience will improve. They can give guidance to research programmes and give a new orientation to teaching,” Malhotra said.

Other IITs appeared to have been encouraged by IIT Kharagpur’s initiative.

IIT Guwahati director Gautam Biswas said although his institute does not have a wide alumni network, it would try to generate funds to start a corpus to attract the best among foreign teachers as visiting professors.

IIT Bombay, too, is exploring the possibility of setting up a similar corpus to attract qualified visiting teachers from abroad, sources said.