New Delhi, Aug 24 - In an unprecedented move, hundreds of faculty members of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) Bombay and Roorkee went on mass casual leave Monday to protest disparities in pay. Their peers in Delhi will follow suit Tuesday.

'The pay hike given by the government is at least 30 percent less at the lower level (of faculties) and at higher level it is 40 percent less than what we had asked for. It will be difficult for us to attract good faculty members,' Saumya Mukherjee, professor at IIT-Bombay, told reporters.

Holding placards, the professors came out of the IIT-Bombay campus in a long line.

They said that to become a professor at any IIT, a student needs to have a PhD, which involves around six more years of study. This entails loss of income. Had they taken up a government job, they would have earned at least Rs.2.3 million, they claimed.

'The government is not even giving us the scholastic pay which is a compensation for the loss in earning,' said another professor from IIT-Bombay.

IIT-Roorkee director S.C. Saxena told IANS: 'There is some dissatisfaction over the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations for our pay hike. I returned from abroad Monday morning and will discuss the issue with the faculty members.