Cash crisis at atomic energy dept hits salaries at TIFR
MUMBAI: The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), confronting a cash crisis, had to seek a loan from its affiliate Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) in Mumbai to pay the February 2019 salaries of employees, scientists and postdoctoral fellows of 11 affiliated scientific institutes, including the prestigious Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).
On Wednesday, a notice announcing the salary cut, and signed by TIFR Registrar George Anthony was circulated at the Mumbai-based institute.
“Due to insufficient funds, all staff members/post-doctoral fellows at TIFR, its centres and field stations will be paid 50% of net salary for the month of February immediately,” read the notice, a copy of which was seen by Hindustan Times. “Remaining part of the salary will be paid when sufficient funds are available.”
By late Thursday, the immediate crisis seemed to have blown over, at least at the 74-year-old TIFR, a deemed university that does research in mathematics and the sciences. A senior scientist at the institute said on condition of anonymity that he had received the remaining part of his salary on Thursday evening.
“The remaining part of the salary has been released. So the notice [on Wednesday[ is not valid anymore. There was some internal issue which has now been resolved. I would not like to elaborate further,” Anthony said in a statement.
TMC did not respond to calls and messages for a comment.
Earlier on Thursday, scientists at TIFR said they had never faced such a situation. “We don’t know what caused this situation,” a TIFR scientist said on condition of anonymity. “We usually get our salaries before the month ends. Had TMC not loaned us money, we would not have received even 50% yesterday. It looks like DAE had no funds to pay our salaries. I hope this was an aberration.”
In a letter dated March 1, DAE secretary KN Vyas had written to Dr RA Badwe, director of TMC – HT has a copy of the letter – requesting the latter to release R70 crore to its 11 affiliated institutes for paying February salaries. The letter stated that DAE was facing a “budget crisis” and could release grant-in-aid salaries to its aided institutes, and that the issue had been taken up with the ministry of finance. The letter said: “In the meantime, in order to tide over the situation, I shall be grateful if you could kindly release the funds to the extent of ₹70 crore under salaries to the aided institutes as per the list annexed to this letter directly to their bank accounts as an interim measure.”
The letter went on to state that the aided institutes, on receiving money from DAE, would refund the amounts they receive from TMC.
“This will enable the AIs (aided institutes) of the department to release salaries to their employees. Once again, I, on behalf of all the institutes of DAE, am thankful to you for the help.”
Officials from DAE did not comment on the reasons for the cash crunch in response to phone calls, messages and emails sent by HT.
The scientist cited above added that the TMC released ₹21 crore to TIFR, and ₹21.60 crore to its own employees. The Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics at Kolkata; and the Institute of Plasma Research, Gandhinagar received ₹7 crore each.