Training institute set to be closed

THE Indian Institute of Securities Management (IISM), promoted originally by the erstwhile UTI and which came under the Securities Exchange Board of India (Sebi) fold later, is set to be closed down.
With none of the staffers of the institute willing to accept an exit package, Sebi is in a fix over handling the issue. Some employees are now planning to approach the political establishment to highlight their plight.
The IISM management, in a letter to all its employees on March 3, ’10, has made it clear that “all activities of the institute will come to an end”. It offered a VRS and also made it clear that retrenchment was inevitable if the employees failed to accept the VRS. There, however, are no takers for the two “voluntary separation schemes followed by the “revised voluntary separation scheme” offered by the institute.
This leaves a question mark over the fate of the institute. According to employees, the management’s decision to sack employees goes against the promise made to them when it was merged with Sebi’s National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM) four years ago. “We were promised job protection while the institute was being transferred,” a member of the IISM staff toldET.
When contacted, a former senior official with the market regulator, who was involved with the project, said: “Following the merger of IISM with the NISM, it was decided to offer VRS to employees. Sebi took this decision long ago. Formed as the Indian Institute of Capital Markets as the Unit Trust of India’s training arm in 1989 it was managed and run by the Specified Undertaking of the UTI (SUUTI). A few years later, the institute was taken over by Sebi and was christened as the National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM).
The institute has regularly been conducting programmes for the Central Bureau of Investigation, Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, Indian Economic Service, Indian Revenue Service, Forward Markets Commission and Sebi’s employees besides many public, private and MNCs.
It conducts Securities Markets Programme, a full-time one-year post-graduate diploma along with a popular programme on Financial Engineering and Risk Management.