The Tata Institute of Social Sciences on Sunday said that it has withdrawn notices about the termination of the contracts of more than 100 staff members across all its four campuses.

On June 28, the institute had sent notices to 55 teaching faculty members and 60 non-teaching staffers, stating that their contracts would not be renewed “in the event of non-receipt of approval/ grant from Tata Education Trust”. The contracts were slated to lapse on Sunday.

However, the institute, in a press release on Sunday, said that there has now been a “positive development” about the release of funds from the trust.

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“Ongoing discussions with Tata Education Trust have provided assurance that resources will be made available to TISS to resolve this issue,” the institute said. “TET has committed to releasing funds for salaries of TET project/programme faculty and non-teaching staff.”

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences said that in view of these developments, the letter about the termination of contracts has been withdrawn with immediate effect. “They [the staff members] are requested to continue their work, and salaries will be released as soon as the TET Support Grant is received by the institute,” the institute said.

The academic institute, however, said it was important to clarify that the staffers were engaged under programmes funded by the Tata Education Trust on a contractual basis for specific durations. It said that because of this arrangements, it had been “unavoidable to issue discontinuation letters”.

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Earlier in the day, a student group named the Progressive Students’ Forum had said that terminating the contracts of the staffers would harm the future of students and would also “allow for politically motivated appointments in the near future”.

Several social media users, including the institute’s former students, had also expressed disappointment about the development.