The faculty members and students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) are not accepting the institute’s withdrawal of termination letters and have demanded regularisation of the employees.

On Sunday, TISS said it had withdrawn the order terminating 55 teaching and 60 non-teaching staff who were engaged on contractual basis and were receiving salaries from the Tata Education Trust (TET).

The TISS Teachers Association (TISSTA) and the Progressive Students Forum (PSF) have called it a temporary measure.

The institute had terminated four contractual faculty members from the University Grants Commission-supported Advanced Centre for Women Studies. The decision of withdrawal of termination, however, is silent about these four faculty members. The media release issued by TISS had stated that these faculty members were engaged under programmes/projects supported by the TET.

“This is a temporary relief to our colleagues… while there is short-term/ temporary relief, there is no clarity on the way forward,” said the statement by the TISSTA.

The statement said the association was concerned about the way faculty members were referred to as project staff. They are integral members of schools and centres and they have been appointed through a proper selection process, it said.

The TISSTA said there was a regular annual delay in receipt of grants from the UGC for payment of salary to the faculty members of the Centre for Women Studies. The letters of termination should not have been issued to them, it said, demanding that the letters be retracted with immediate effect.

“We are concerned about the lack of clarity of the financial sustainability and future of the faculty and staff under TET,” it said.

“We seek a holistic roadmap from TISS Administration for regularisation and absorption of TET faculty and staff with mapping and filling of vacant backlog positions and new UGC posts,” the statement added.

The PSF said the students deserved adequate number of teachers and staff, and the employees deserved permanent solutions, not temporary arrangements.

It added that the TISS’s media release did not specify the period for which the TET had extended funding for the contractual staff.

The PSF said terminating many non-teaching staff, the backbone of the TISS, would lead to chaos and delays in executing essential tasks such as admissions, examinations and evaluations.