Scholars claim 'academic output' dropped under new director; CSIR to send fact-finding team to IICB Kolkata

New Delhi: For over three weeks unrest and protests have been brewing at one of India’s oldest research laboratories with scholars alleging a “significant drop in the institute’s academic output” under the leadership of new director who also sacked 50 plus contractual workers overnight.

The Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research witnessed multiple protests and agitations inside the campus since the beginning of this month following which students and scientists approached the CSIR director general seeking “a comprehensive investigation into the grievances to uphold transparency, ensure accountability, and restore a conducive academic environment.”

To sort out the problems, a team of senior scientists would travel to IICB to interact with the stakeholders, sources told DH, noting that the director must look at the problems with “empathy” as most of the issues flagged by the scholars are “solvable”.

“The director needs to look at the issues with empathy and match the thought process of IICB staff, scholars and scientists. We will talk to all the stakeholders and resolve the problems,” a senior official said.

Established in 1935 as the first non-official centre in India for biomedical research, the IICB is headed by Vibha Tandon, who took over as the director last year. Prior to the current appointment, she was a professor at the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

“Since the CSIR headquarters is conducting an investigation, it will not be right for me to comment on the charges. But everything is peaceful at the institute now. We celebrated Republic Day today,” Tandon told DH.

IICB scholars claimed that the director’s “persistent verbal abuse directed at students and scientists” for close to a year led to “hostile and demoralizing environment within the institute”, but the ground situation rapidly spiralled after “51 contractual staff members were detained from their service overnight, without any prior notification.”

Though the workers’ termination order was revoked within days, it led to a series of protests against Tandon and multiple complaints to the CSIR director general N Kalaiselvi against the director.

The students and research scientists submitted a detailed 20-point note to the CSIR chief detailing the charges that include “students being denied access to the NMR and Mass spectrometry facility due to unjustified restrainment of slots for the director 's personal research” and the “proposal to install a biosafety level 3 unit in a densely populated area”.

Sources clarified that no money has been allocated to IICB for any BSL-3 facility as all CSIR experiments needing such a facility would be carried out in Indian Council of Medical Research units.

“Also the director should give the prime time slots at the NMR facility to the students as she can use the non-prime slots,” said a top official at CSIR headquarters.

Other issues highlighted by the students include “transfer of experienced technical staff to irrelevant departments”; “unreasonably denying or delaying to grant permission to students to apply for national/international travel grants” and “decline of research publications” even more than the Covid-19 pandemic period.