New Delhi, Sept. 2: The Centre plans to approach the cabinet to amend a new pay regime for IIT and IIM faculty, agreeing to a quantum hike in assistant professor salaries to quell an unprecedented pay dispute rocking the institutes.

Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal today indicated to IIT directors the ministry’s plans to hike the pay of assistant professors — the lowest rung in the permanent faculty structure at the IITs, top officials said.

The HRD minister also asked the IITs to consider holding common counselling procedures during admissions with engineering colleges that admit students through the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE).

The AIEEE is used by a slew of engineering colleges, including the National Institutes of Technology, to select students. The IITs admit students through a Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) they conduct.

Under the HRD ministry proposal, the JEE and the AIEEE will continue to exist as separate entities, but the process of allotting seats to students — known as counselling — may be common.

Such a common counselling process would help reduce the number of seats that go vacant because students seek admissions at more than one institute — to ensure they get a seat somewhere — before eventually picking on one of them.

But HRD ministry sources confirmed that no decision was taken on this proposal.

Under the pay scales notified earlier this month, assistant professors were placed at a starting monthly salary of Rs 30,000, in a range referred to as pay band 3.

The HRD ministry has decided that salaries for assistant professors will now start at Rs 37,400 a month in a higher pay range — called pay band 4.

The academic grade pay — a rank-based increment — for assistant professors will remain at Rs 8,000 a month as notified earlier this month.

The Telegraph had yesterday reported the ministry’s plans to hike salaries of assistant professors to help tackle a faculty protest that saw IIT teachers boycotting classes for the first time ever.