Patna centre of Tata Institute of Social Sciences closed 6 years after inception due to ‘lack of govt support’

PATNA: The Patna centre of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai faced a premature death just six years after its inception. Its final closure was announced by the authorities on Saturday.
The news of closure of the Patna centre of TISS, called ‘Centre for Development Practice and Research’, came as a shock to the local academics who all had pinned their hopes high on it. In a short span of six years, it had made studies on socio-economic problems of the state, especially migration of workers.
The report of sexual exploitation of minors at the infamous Muzaffarpur shelter home in 2018 came to light following an audit report submitted by this centre. The state government had asked this centre to conduct an audit of the government-funded shelter homes in August 2017.
The TISS centre was established in 2016 with the objective of undertaking research and publications in areas that are unique to the state with limited teaching and field action programmes. To start with, the Takshila Educational Society was instrumental in providing the core financial and infrastructural support to the centre.
More than a dozen faculty and research staff were appointed on the UGC pay scales and its office was located at DPS in west Patna. The centre’s faculty published five books, 18 journal articles, 23 book chapters, more than two dozen articles in popular media, delivered invited lectures and presented papers in conferences in India and abroad.
It published a set of 20 booklets for gram panchayat functionaries both in English and Hindi. The centre launched an online, bi-annual, peer-reviewed journal, Journal of Migration Affairs, in September 2018. It organised a large number of lectures and workshops on different issues related to the state’s growth and development. It also held training programmes for grassroots functionaries, government officials and trade union leaders. Besides, it organised workshops for urban and rural local bodies functionaries, and two policy roundtables, including one with the ILO and labour resources department of the state government.
The faculties of this centre actively participated in guest teaching, syllabus framing and collaborative research activities in the universities and other premier academic institutions of the state and outside.
However, all these activities carried out by the centre are now the things of the past. The centre could not continue its activities without any regular financial support either from the state government or private organizations.
Centre’s chairperson Pushpendra told this newspaper that initially the government had agreed in principle to support this centre financially and provide some space for accommodation, but nothing could materialize. He thanked the Takshila Society and the people of the city for their physical and moral support to this centre.
Expressing its grave concern at the premature demise of this prestigious centre, noted economist and social activist Nawal Kishore Chaudhary said Bihar has perhaps no fertile soil for good academic institutions. “It is regrettable that the state government could not provide any help to this centre,” he added.
Education minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, however, said the state government was not anywhere in the picture right from the day TISS started working in Patna. “I am not aware of any recent development related to this centre. The centre must have started its activities here only after getting prior approval of the state government so that it did not face any administrative or financial problem in future,” he added.