Due to lack of funds from the Tata Education Trust, about 55 faculty members and 60 non-teaching employees of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) have been dismissed without even a month’s notice. The dismissed staff members were working on contract across four TISS campuses and were expecting their contracts to be renewed. Those impacted include 20 members of the Mumbai campus faculty, 15 belonging to the Hyderabad campus, 14 from Guwahati and six from Tuljapur, all of whom are working on contract. No grant coming from the Trust means that the salaries of these employees cannot be paid. Due to this dismissal, the Guwahati campus has lost 50 per cent of its faculty members and all of the non-teaching staff!
Most of the teachers dismissed were selected via a rigorous selection process and have either cleared NET or are PhD scholars.
The faculty members who still remain are those that occupy permanent positions on the rolls of the University Grants Commission (UGC).
The teaching staff feels that the dismissals were an outcome of amendments made in the UGC rules, due to which appointments at TISS came under the control of the Centre, with the institute being treated as other deemed-to-be-universities. This led to the Institute’s reliance on the Centre for more than half of its funds. However, the authorities at TISS deny any link of the dismissals with the involvement of the Centre or change in UGC regulations. They claim that despite their efforts to get the grant released from the Tata Education trust, no approval has been received nor has any decision has been taken in this regard. Therefore, the contract staff had to be let go.
The dismissal was a shocker for the faculty membersof the Tata Institute of Social Sciences who were reportedly occupied with admissions and had also worked hard to give the syllabus a makeover in line with the New Education Policy.
