ISEC director resigns

Prof Binay Kumar Pattnaik resigned on Tuesday as director of the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC). He was accused of financial irregularities and administrative lapses. 

But a circular issued the same day attributed Pattnaik’s resignation to health reasons. M R Narayana, professor of economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Policy, has been appointed the in-charge director of ISEC. 

Pattnaik, formerly a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, was appointed for a term of five years starting July 2013. 

But controversies dogged the institute from November 2014 onwards when e-mail accounts of three professors were blocked. Soon thereafter, T N Bhat, a faculty member, filed a complaint with the Lokayukta charging Pattnaik with financial irregularities which Pattnaik denied. 

An ISEC professor described Pattnaik’s tenure as the lowest point in the institute’s history. “The 18 months that Prof Pattnaik was the director of ISEC mark the lowest point in the institute’s history. He was someone from a teaching background and found it hard to handle the workings of an institute that is known for research,” the professor told Deccan Herald on the condition of anonymity.