Govt moves to end ISI's 94-yr society status, defends Bill amid backlash

The Centre says the proposed law will strengthen governance and expand academic opportunities at the Indian Statistical Institute, while faculty members warn it could erode institutional autonomy

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (Mospi) has defended the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Bill, 2026, arguing that converting the 94-year-old institute from a registered society into a statutory body corporate will unlock long-stalled growth rather than strip it of independence — a charge levelled by sections of the ISI faculty against the legislation.

 

"What it is taking away is the autonomy of the ISI society," Statistics Secretary Saurabh Garg said on Wednesday, rejecting a "narrative going around as if the government is trying to take away the autonomy" of the institute.

 

Garg stressed that the Bill does the opposite. He said it hands greater autonomy to the Board of Governors and to ISI's centres, while ending the sway of a roughly 1,800-member society in which, by his account, only 150 to 200 people typically turn up to decide the institute's direction.

 

Introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday as Bill No. 144 of 2026 by Minister of State (Independent Charge) Rao Inderjit Singh, the legislation repeals the Indian Statistical Institute Act, 1959, and re-establishes ISI as a body corporate with a defined statutory governance structure.

 

Meanwhile, at a separate press conference on Wednesday, senior faculty members of the ISI and members of the Opposition urged parliamentarians to reject the Bill and refer it to a Parliamentary Standing Committee. They demanded that the committee engage and consult with all stakeholders of ISI and the academic community.

 

ISI faculty argued that the Bill replaces the institute's existing society-based governance with a centrally controlled Board of Governors, reducing the role of elected faculty, staff and the ISI Council. They said this weakens institutional autonomy and internal accountability.

 

They contended that the Bill shifts key academic decisions from the Academic Council to the Board of Governors. They fear this could dilute faculty participation in decisions on courses, fees and academic policies, and undermine ISI's long-standing academic independence.

 

Under the present arrangement, ISI's general body of around 1,800 members is the institute's supreme authority, with a 33-member Governing Council below it, and any major change requires a three-fourths majority of the society.

 

Founded in 1931 and declared an Institution of National Importance in 1959, ISI is one of only two such institutions that never made the transition from a society to a statutory body — unlike the IITs, IIMs and more than 160 other national institutes — a legacy the government now says has left it unable to reform itself.

 

The Bill removes that layer altogether and installs a slimmer architecture in its place: the President of India as Visitor; an 11-member Board of Governors as the principal policy-making and executive body; an Academic Council, chaired by the Director and including all full professors, as the principal academic body; and a Director serving a five-year term as chief executive, appointed by the Board with the Visitor's prior approval.

 

Alongside the governance overhaul, the Bill widens the legal definition of "statistical sciences" to include data science, computer science, cryptology, biostatistics and other allied fields, allowing ISI to grant degrees in areas such as cryptology.

 

Pressed on whether the new structure concentrates power in the government's hands, Mospi insisted the opposite is true. The number of government representatives on the top body falls from six out of 33 to two out of 11, Garg said, and the four external experts on the new Board would be chosen by a selection committee chaired by the Board's own chairperson and including a nominee of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), with the appointment rules to be published for public comment before they are finalised.

 

ISI faculty rejected the ministry's contention that the proposed governance model reduces government control simply because the number of government nominees on the Board falls. They argued that the more significant change is in the appointment process, with the chairperson to be nominated by the Visitor on the advice of the Central government and the Director's appointment also requiring the Visitor's prior approval. They also pointed out that the number of external academic experts would be reduced and that, unlike the current system where many are nominated by independent scientific academies such as INSA, the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), the new Bill allows the chairperson to nominate them. According to the faculty, these changes centralise decision-making despite the smaller number of government representatives on the Board.

 

The professors said one of Mospi's contentions has been that ISI has not implemented the recommendations of the Fourth ISI Review Committee, chaired by R A Mashelkar. They argued that the committee's recommendations have largely been implemented and that ISI has provided justification for those that were not.

 

"If you look at the prestigious institutes of India such as the IITs and IIMs, everyone had an amendment. Why a repeal for us? We would like a discussion first," said Arijit Bishnu, professor at ISI Kolkata.

 

"Also, ISI is probably one of the last institutes that still offers free courses and we even offer stipends. If this Bill comes in, the consequence of that will be fees being introduced," Bishnu added.

 

The ministry's broader case rests on a succession of expert reviews that, it says, the society model repeatedly failed to act on. Garg was blunt about what he sees as the root of the problem: Real power, he argued, rests with roughly eight elected heads of divisions, whom he called the "local satraps", who control faculty, courses and admissions across the institute, including at the Delhi and Bengaluru centres.

 

"And because of that, the number of students, number of courses, interdisciplinary courses are very limited, etc., because each head wants to see what is being done in their division," he said.

 

"I think this siloed thinking within the ISI is the biggest problem which needs to be attacked," Garg added.

 

As evidence, he pointed to an institute that, after more than nine decades, has about 1,500 students against 281 faculty members — a ratio of roughly 5.5 students per faculty member — while comparable institutions have ratios of 8-10 students per faculty member.

 

Garg also questioned ISI's practice of granting every student a full tuition waiver and a stipend regardless of need, calling it fiscally unusual and a drag on growth, while stressing that any revision of fees would rest with the Board rather than the government.

 

To the faculty's complaint that the Bill was drawn up without adequate consultation, Garg outlined what he described as more than a year of engagement: a July 2025 session in Bengaluru with about 40 experts, including the Principal Scientific Adviser and former NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Suman Bery, followed by a draft placed on the public consultation portal in September 2025, more than 600 comments across two rounds, inputs from 17 ministries, and separate discussions with faculty representatives and scientific workers.

 

"I don't know what more do they want," he said, though he acknowledged the government had not accepted the faculty's central demands: retaining elections for division heads, preserving the larger internal-majority council, and withholding autonomy from the Delhi and Bengaluru centres.

 

On consultations, Bishnu said the Bill was first floated in September 2025, with a 30-day consultation period.

 

"We wanted extra time, which they gave us, but we were supposed to write as individual members like any other Indian citizen. What we are saying is, please come to the institute and talk to the institute. Individual opinion cannot be a substitute for institutional deliberations," he said, adding that most of their comments were not incorporated into the Bill.

 

He also sought to dispel concerns that ISI's headquarters could move out of Kolkata, calling them "an unnecessary bogey" and noting that the Kolkata headquarters is explicitly provided for in the Bill and protected by a saving clause.

 

On the institute's federal structure, ISI faculty argued that the Bill departs from the 1959 Act by omitting any explicit recognition of Kolkata as the institute's headquarters, raising concerns that its status could be diluted. Additionally, they said the Bill provides little clarity on how ISI's existing centres will be governed, with management councils left optional rather than mandatory, creating uncertainty over the governance of the institute's multi-campus structure.