The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) on Sunday announced the withdrawal of its orders terminating 55 faculty members and 60 non-teaching staff across four campuses after the Tata Education Trust (TET) agreed to provide the necessary funds.

The Indian Express had earlier reported that 115 contractual employees — including 55 faculty members — had been dismissed from TISS campuses in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Guwahati and Tuljapur following non-receipt of grants from the TET.

The institute has now said that the letter dated June 28 — addressed to all concerned TET programme faculty and non-teaching staff — "is hereby withdrawn with immediate effect".

All the 115 affected employees have been requested to continue their work with the assurance that salaries will be released as soon as the TET support grant is received by the institute.

Seeking to explain why the termination order was issued, TISS said "these individuals were engaged under programmes funded by the Tata Education Trust (TET) on a contractual basis for specific programme durations. While it was unavoidable to issue discontinuation letters due to this contractual arrangement, there has been a positive development regarding the release of funds from TET".

The institute said ongoing discussions with TET "have provided assurance that resources will be made available to TISS to resolve this issue", adding that the Trust has committed to releasing funds for the salaries of TET project/programme faculty and non-teaching staff.