Minutes of the Faculty Association Executive Committee meeting 05/05/2000.

Members present:

1. Prof. Swami Manohar (President)
2. Prof. Diptiman Sen (Vice President)
3. Prof. V. Kumaran (General Secretary)

The following report was provided by the General Secretary regarding the
Medical Committee meeting on 24/04/00

1. The minutes of the above meeting had not yet been received for placing
before the EC. However, at the meeting, the following had been decided.

a) The reimbursement for hospitalisation would be fixed at the levels
applicable at St. John's hospital, or other equivalent hospitals. The
suggestion of the FA for a deductible and part payment was not accepted
by the Financial Controller because he felt it would be too complicated.

b) It was agreed that in case of hospitalisation, full payment would be
made by the institute and recovery would be by way of salary deduction.

c) The deduction was fixed at 2% of basic. The Medical Committee 
overruled the suggestion that it be fixed at 1.5 % of total salary,
so that contributions would increase as DA increased.

d) The scheme for pensioners would continue as before.

It was decided that at the next meeting with the Director, he would be
alerted to the fact that 1.5 % of total salary is preferable to 2 % of
basic, for the reasons mentioned above.

The following items were discussed.

1. The Council Section has said that the director has approved
reconstituting the grievance committee, and has requested two nominees
from the FA. The grievance committee is an important committee, and it is
necessary to choose our nominees with care.
This was discussed at the meeting on 05/05/00, and it was
decided that it was desirable if the nominees

a) Had good academic record and experience in order to have credibility
among the faculty

b) Perceived as fair

c) Showed an interest in the affairs of the faculty

d) Had some experience in administrative matters

2. The FA had received a letter from some of the MRC faculty regarding 
the appointment of chairman from outside the department. While it was
recognised by the members present that the appointment of chairmen by
the director is an executive decision, it was also felt that some policy
measures should be present so that the faculty are taken into confidence.
In this regard, it was suggested that at the next meeting with the 
director, clarifications could be requested on the following subjects.

a) The procedure for appointing associate faculty in a department, and
whether the COP of the department is consulted on such appointments.

b) The procedure of appointing chairmen of the department, and the 
faculty consultation to this effect.

3. The issue of reconstituting the category wise representation has come
up before in the Executive committee meetings and general body meetings,
but no discussion was taken. At the meeting on 05/05/00, after some
discussion, the following policy was suggested. It was proposed
that the executive committee could be represented among the different
categories in proportion to the representation in the Faculty
Association, as determined by a census carried out every four years.
However, this is subject to the condition that at least one member be
elected from each category in every year. The census of the members could
be carried out once in four years, and the proportion of the association
members in each category determined.

4. In order to carry out the census, it is necessary to have a complete
list of Faculty Association members and their designation. This is
becoming difficult, because there is a change in the membership rolls of
the annual members every year. One solution, which has been discussed
before, is to do away with annual membership and retain only life
membership, so that keeping track of the members becomes easy. The other
is to include the life members only in the proportionate representation
system, so that the census becomes easy.