The Indian Jute Industries' Research Association Employees' Union (IJIRAEU) has strongly opposed the treatment meted out by the management of Indian Jute Industries' Research Association (IJIRA) towards its employees.
The management has issued a notice for voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), which also has the provision to impose premature retirement on the employees.
The union opines that this is the first case of such an attack on the employees of a research institute in the whole country and thus bears an ominous signal.
Apparently the management has not even spared the scientists and technologists. Many departments of the existing research and development infrastructure is being dismantled. Many high cost equipment have also been disposed of without obtaining obligatory permission of the government.
The employees had also met the union textile minister, Kashiram Rana and the secretary textiles to apprise them of the affairs of IJIRA.
The Union also alleges that lack of monitoring on the part of the textile ministry has led to gross misuse of government grants and abuse of power.
The issue apparently was also brought to notice of the chief minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu who had also written to the textile minister seeking intervention.
IJIRA is being almost totally funded (99.5 per cent) by and is under the administrative control of the ministry of textiles, government of India.
Among the ministry of textiles officials, the jute commissioner is the only permanent member and the joint secretary (jute) is the nominee of the ministry of textiles in the council of management, the highest policy making body of the IJIRA. The jute commissioner is also a member of the finance and executive committee of IJIRA.
The erstwhile Indian Jute Manufacturers Association Research Institute (IJMARI), in 1966 became a co-operative research institute under the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and assumed the name IJIRA.
