TISS terminates 55 faculty members, 60 non-teaching staff at four campuses

The TATA Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) is learned to have dismissed, without notice, 55 faculty members and close to 60 non-teaching staff members across its four campuses on Friday. This includes half the teaching staff and all non-teaching staff members at its Guwahati campus. The reason given for their dismissal was the non-receipt of grants from the Tata Education Trust, which was funding their salaries. 

Among the teaching staff, 20 dismissed are from the Mumbai campus, 15 from Hyderabad, 14 from Guwahati, and six from Tuljapur. The remaining teaching staff on TISS campuses are permanent faculty members on the University Grants Commission (UGC) payroll.

Some faculty members have linked the development to changes in UGC regulations, which in June last year brought TISS under the Central government’s purview of appointments along with other deemed-to-be-universities receiving over 50 per cent funding from the Centre.

A statement issued by the institute’s Progressive Students' Forum (PSF) strongly condemned the mass termination. “After repeatedly targeting its students and curbing the campus democracy, the present TISS administration, under the BJP-led union government, has unleashed an attack on its employees as well.” 

The TISS administration has dismissed this connection.

It came across as shocking that these faculty and non-teaching staff members were informed that their contracts would not be renewed and their services would end on 30 June.

The termination letters sent from the office of officiating registrar Anil Sutar to those dismissed read, “The institute tried its best for the release of grant from Tata Education Trust for the purpose of salary. The institute made several attempts for the release of grant through official correspondence and personal meetings with the Tata Education Trust and the decision regarding further extension of grant period has not yet been received from Tata Education Trust.

“Our annual contracts actually ended in May but at the beginning of this month, we got an email requesting us to continue with institute work till the Tata Trust funding is renewed. So there was an understanding that the contracts would be renewed. I have worked here for 11 years and we had been asking for longer contracts for a while. We haven’t even been given a month’s notice period as stated in our contracts. We have just been given two days to fill a no-dues form to claim our June salaries,” said a faculty member from TISS Guwahati according to a report in the Indian Express.

“We were also working to revamp the entire Masters programme in compliance with the New Education Policy during this period,” said another faculty member from the Guwahati campus.

A faculty member from the Mumbai campus who requested anonymity said, “Most of us have been working for as many as 10-15 years, including in positions of responsibilities such as centre heads. We are unsure how the institute plans to run the courses after this arbitrary dismissal of such a large number of employees without having an alternative ready.”

According to a member of the administration, there are plans to propose that the same faculty members work on an hourly basis to enable teaching to continue, while also preparing a complete roster of required positions to issue advertisements for regular appointments.

The PSF also stated that “The previous years' NIRF data shows that the student-faculty ratio is being impacted negatively. This means that the currently employed faculty is insufficient in terms of the number of students admitted to TISS each year. While the termination of a hundred such positions will directly impact the futures of the students who are enrolling in the Institute, it might also allow for politically motivated appointments in the near future.”