IISER Pune Professor resigns alleging anti-environmental acts on campus

Sumit Singh

Pune – Professor Milind Watve from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune on Tuesday took to Facebook to announce his resignation on his 61st birthday. 

“The day I complete 61, I am making public an important decision.
I have resigned from IISER, Pune and will be leaving soon. The resignation decision is because of multiple reasons. Last year about this time, the Director constituted a landscape committee for IISER Pune campus and I was asked to chair it. While studying the landscape of IISER in greater details, I started seeing things differently and realizing many things. A number of illegal and anti-environmental acts had been and were being committed on the campus including tree felling without proper permission procedure; releasing untreated sewage in spite of having a sewage treatment plant and giving fabricated false sewage quality reports of near zero BOD all the time. The entire land was gradually being concretized indiscriminately and unnecessarily. As long as I was not involved, although I (shared by many others) felt bad about the unnecessary tree cutting, I used to think that somehow they manage to get permissions. Only after I chaired the landscape committee I started looking at facts and discovered that none of the legal procedures were followed. When challenged, they actually started denying that any trees were ever cut on the campus. But see the accompanying satellite images for the truth. This is only a partial picture of the total destruction.”

“I raised these issues repeatedly within the institute but no action was taken. Then all of a sudden I was charged with being involved in or supporting some other illegal act and within 48 hours an inquiry committee was set up. The committee appears to have tried its best but did not find any evidence and in its conclusions did not say that I was guilty. Still I was removed from the landscape committee. The contrast between the reluctance to act against the true anti-environmental and illegal campus activities for over a year and making haste at the slightest opportunity to book me is a clear indication of who actually runs IISER. It was clear to me that I should not waste my time anymore being in this system. I don’t have the moral right to carry out biodiversity, ecology and conservation research in such an institute. But as a citizen of India, I can do a lot more. 

“There is a personal side to this story. In partial compensation of the tree felling, I proposed to develop a mini-arboretum of endemic and endangered tree species on the remaining un-concretized IISER campus, and the proposal was approved. Inspired and helped by Dr Yadav and his team of Shivaji University, also getting Moha germplasm diversity from BAIF, and exploring many other sources of RET species, we started working with full devotion. I had little background knowledge of tree species diversity, but I started studying it and very soon it became such a deep rooted passion for me that now if I am prevented from shaping the campus arboretum, I see no point in existing on the campus. I hope I will still be able to pursue this passion elsewhere.  So good bye IISER, Pune!!  This is a matter of principles and my struggle is with the system. I am not personally against anyone and have not made any personal accusations. Also my resignation is completely voluntary and I am under no pressure to resign.” 

The report will be updated after getting version from the IISER.