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Review committee suggests radical redesigning of ICSSR

Anita Joshua

Recommends converting it into autonomous statutory body

NEW DELHI: A name change and “radical redesigning” of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) has been suggested by a review committee to restore its credibility.

Also, while maintaining that resources must be primarily provided from public funds, the committee is of the view that it need not be exclusively so.

In its report, the 4th Review Committee has recommended that the Council be renamed the Indian Academy of Social Sciences (IASS) and converted into an autonomous statutory body. As per the recommendation, the governance and management of the IASS should be entrusted to the scholarly community with full financial and functional autonomy to decide and implement its programmes.

In particular, it has sought a re-examination of the Memorandum of Association (MoA) which is of 1969 vintage. This is a point articulated by ICSSR Chairman Andre Beteille recently while delivering a lecture on ‘Social Science Research in Its Present Setting’ at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.

Elaborating on the subject in his lecture, Prof. Beteille pointed out that some of the contradictions that plague the Council lie in the MoA. Structured as a society, it has the appearance of an autonomous institution and over the years has come to function as a department of the government; that, too, a minor department.

In particular, he voiced concern over the opaque manner in which persons are nominated to become members of the Council; a point made by the Review Committee also.

The restructured Academy, according to the Review Committee, should have access to much larger and more assured funding. While allowing a window of opportunity to funding avenues outside the government, the committee is of the view that resources must be provided from public funds as the private sector is not interested in supporting social science research because of its inability to produce marketable inventions or products.

Advocating that 0.1 per cent of the public sector’s annual plan outlay should be earmarked for supporting research on contemporary social and developmental issues, the Review Committee is of the view that the responsibility of funding the Council/Academy should not be that of the Union Human Resource Development Ministry alone as is the case at present. “It needs to be recognised and accepted as the responsibility of the government as a whole, with funds being contributed by various departments.”

At present levels of plan expenditure, allocation of 0.1 per cent of public sector annual plan outlay to social science research would yield about Rs. 400 crore — nearly 10 times the present budget of the ICSSR.

This, according to the Review Committee, would give a big boost to social science research which is a poor cousin of research in science and technology.

The report of the Review Committee — the first such exercise to be undertaken in 20 years despite the original mandate of the Council providing for periodic review — is with the HRD Ministry. A five-member committee, it was chaired by economist A. Vaidyanathan and has also made out a case for stricter mechanisms to ensure accountability for superior quality of projects and their outputs.

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