Mumbai: TISS withdraws dismissal of over 100 staff members

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences campus at Deonar. File pic/Ashish Raje

Two days after announcing the dismissal of 55 faculty members and 60 non-teaching staff due to a lack of funds from the Tata Education Trust (TET), the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) administration has reversed its decision. Following assurances from TET to release the necessary funds for salaries, the institute has revoked the terminations.

The dismissed staff, some with over a decade of service, were contractual employees. The initial reason for their dismissal was the non-receipt of grants from TET, which funded their salaries. Among the teaching staff, 20 were from the Mumbai campus, 15 from Hyderabad, 14 from Guwahati, and six from Tuljapur. The permanent faculty members are on the University Grants Commission (UGC) payroll.

An email from the office of the officiating registrar, Anil Sutar, stated that the institute had made several attempts to secure the grant from TET. In the absence of an extension, services were set to end on June 30. This decision drew widespread criticism. The Progressive Students' Forum (PSF), a student collective, issued a statement condemning the mass termination and demanding its immediate revocation. They argued that the termination risked the livelihoods of employees and threatened the future of students and the quality of education.

Collective's condemnation

The students' body stated: "As students, we express our concern about this decision. The previous years' NIRF [National Institutional Ranking Framework] data shows that the student-faculty ratio is being impacted negatively. The result has been that students are facing delays in receiving student aid and are being threatened in the name of fee payment. While becoming a public institute should have relieved the pressure from students coming from economically and socially marginalised backgrounds, the Central government takeover has resulted in added monetary pressures.

The latest move of robbing a hundred teaching and non-teaching staff at the institute of their jobs highlights the BJP government's anti-education and anti-TISS stance. The BJP-led Central government and the current TISS administration are directly responsible for taking away the livelihoods of nearly a hundred employees and putting the future of its students also at risk. The recent blunders made by the Ministry of Education in conducting nationwide entrance examinations only add to the incompetence of the central government."

Institute's statement

Meanwhile, in a u-turn on Sunday, TISS issued a statement reversing their decision, which read, "TISS, established in 1936 as a deemed university and fully funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of the Government of India, is currently governed by the TISS Society in accordance with mandates from the University Grants Commission. Recently, a controversy has arisen in the media regarding the temporary discontinuation of services for 55 faculty members and 60 non-teaching staff across four campuses It."

According to the statement, all 55 faculty and 60 non-teaching staff were appointed under programmes funded by the TET and were on a contractual basis with an exact programme period. "Ongoing discussions with the TET have provided assurance that resources will be made available to TISS to resolve this issue. TET has committed to releasing funds for the salaries of TET project/programme faculty and non-teaching staff. The letter numbered Admn/5(1) TET-Faculty & Staff/2024, dated June 28, 2024, addressed to all concerned TET Programme faculty and non-teaching staff, is hereby withdrawn with immediate effect. They are requested to continue their work, and salaries will be released as soon as the TET support grant is received by the institute."