A section of present and past teachers of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta, has written to the chairman of the ISI council, drawing his attention to
the “inordinate and unprecedented delay” in the appointment of a full-term director.
The teachers have alleged that the appointment of a permanent director has been stalled at a time when the ministry of statistics and programme implementation is allegedly pursuing a unilateral overhaul of the institute’s governance structure by introducing an ISI Bill.
The institute has been helmed by an officiating director for over seven months, sources said.
The tenure of officiating director Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay expired on December 31, 2025.
In January, the council chairman appointed Ayanaendranath Basu, the senior-most professor at ISI, as the officiating director.
The teachers alleged that after the selection process to appoint a new full-term director was initiated, the ministry proposed a new legislation for the ISI governance structure, “which is inappropriate”.
“The appointment of a new regular director is of greater importance to us for the appropriate administrative functioning of the institute than bringing in a new ‘statutory body corporate structure’,” the letter says.
The ISI bill proposes to dissolve the society-based governance structure and
introduce a board of governors vested with absolute powers.
The ministry would hand-pick the board members.
The teachers alleged that the advertisement for the post of ISI director, published on May 19, 2025, says that the ISI director functions within the framework of the ISI Act, 1959. The revised ISI bill, however, seeks to repeal the 1959 Act.
An email to Kopilil Radhakrishnan, the chairman of the council, from this newspaper received no response.
An ISI teacher who signed the emailed petition to Radhakrishnan last month said teacher appointments and the introduction of new courses were suspended in the absence of a full-term director.
ISI, Calcutta, has 60 vacant teacher posts out of a sanctioned strength of 281. Of the 757 sanctioned non-faculty posts, more than 350 are vacant.
“We are struggling in the absence of adequate teachers. Had there been a permanent director, a process could have been initiated to fill the vacant teaching and non-teaching posts,” a professor said.
“A full-term director also feels free to call a meeting of the academic council, so there could be deliberation on new courses and the curriculum. A stalemate-like situation is being created by delaying the appointment of a full-term director,” another professor said.
The contentious new structure being proposed by the ministry seeks to bypass the councils- the council and the academic council.
Under the present society-based structure, the council is the highest decision-making body on administrative affairs.
The academic council is the highest decision-making body on academic affairs.
A teacher said they suspect the delay in the appointment is due to the ministry’s intention to funnel the appointment through the proposed board, which will be created once the bill is passed in Parliament and becomes an Act.
“The bill will essentially turn the director into a nominee of the central government, and that will be in complete contravention to the notion of autonomy,” the teacher said.