Kolkata: The Workers' Association of the Indian Statistical Institute has urged the Centre not to replace the council structure with the board of governors in the ISI Bill 2025. It is also wary of the efforts to shift the headquarters of the institute from Kolkata.
The draft bill proposes to replace the 33-member council with an 11-member board. While the members of the council are elected and nominated, the BoG, workers anticipate, will be nominated by the central govt or its nominees.
The BoG, according to the revised draft of the bill, has been given the power to "specify" the number and emoluments for the posts. It can also define the duties and conditions of services of the academic, administrative, technical, and other staff. "The proposed bill does not have any provision for worker representatives. There will not be any check and balance in terms of filling up the vacancies," said a faculty member.
"The board is empowered with changing the service conditions of the faculty members and other staff. Under the present structure, the joint consultative committee gives a hearing to the workers. While the proposed service conditions have not been specified as yet, we have to agree to that without getting any scope for hearing," said an office bearer of the ISI Workers' Organisation.
"The ministry has invited observations on the revised bill till Dec 15. Almost all of the faculty members and non-faculty staff will submit their opinion to the ministry," said Arijit Bishnu, a faculty member of ISI.