The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) has retracted its notice to terminate 115 teaching and non-teaching staff members following an assurance from Ratan Tata’s Tata Education Trust (TET) to provide the necessary resources to address the issue.
TISS announced that it has rescinded the notices issued to 55 teaching and 60 non-teaching staff regarding the non-renewal of their contracts. These employees are now asked to continue their work. “Ongoing discussions with the Tata Education Trust 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,” TISS stated.
“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& Staff/2024, dated June 28, 2024, addressed to all concerned TET Programme faculty and non-teaching staff, is hereby withdrawn with immediate effect,” the circular stated. Staff members are requested to continue their work, and their salaries will be disbursed once the institute receives the TET Support Grant, the statement added.
On June 28, TISS had issued termination letters to around 100 staff at its campuses in Mumbai, Tuljapur, Hyderabad, and Guwahati, stating that the contracts would not be renewed and their services would end on June 30, 2024. Professor Manoj Kumar Tiwari, the in-charge Vice-Chancellor of TISS, explained: “These staff were appointed under various projects funded by the Tata Trust. The funding for these projects has stopped in the last few months. Considering this, we allowed these teachers to work on a clock-hour basis in the institute. But now, we are unable to secure financial aid, so we decided to terminate their services. We will reappoint them once funding from the Trust resumes.”
The move was met with strong criticism from the TISS community. Reacting to the mass termination, the Progressive Students Forum (PSF), a student group from the institute, stated: “TISS, a prestigious institute with a history spanning nearly 90 years, has earned its status as a leading social science institution through the contributions of its faculty and staff. Last year, the union government transformed TISS into a fully public-funded institute. However, this transition has led to delays in student aid and increased financial pressures on students from economically and socially marginalized backgrounds. The latest decision to terminate staff positions further highlights the BJP government’s perceived anti-education and anti-TISS stance.”
The prestigious institute was established in 1936 as a Deemed University. In 2023, the Centre converted TISS into a fully publicly funded institute. It is now fully funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and governed by the TISS Society under UGC guidelines.
