By M Reyaz, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: Research fellows belonging to the scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and minority communities across the country are feeling let down alleging that the central government overlooked them from the recent fellowship hike that their counterparts from other categories received.
The University Grant Commission (UGC) on Monday, December 1, issued a circular announcing the hike in research fellowship. The revised rate would be applicable to scholarships given by UGC but not to the fellows who get scholarships under the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (RGNF) – meant for students belonging to the Physically handicapped, Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribes – and the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) meant for students belonging to minority community.
There has been a demand from research fellows to increase the amount of the fellowship for several years. This time the fellowships under various schemes have been increased by about 55%. This development comes close on the heels of the Centre’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) announcing a hike in fellowship amount given to research scholars in science few months ago. Social Science students and fellows who get scholarships under several other schemes have since been demanding an increase in their grants too on par with the Science students.
According to the revised fellowship, junior research fellowship will increase from existing Rs 16,000 to Rs 25,000 while senior research fellowship will increase from Rs 18,000 to Rs 28000. The decision came after a meeting on November 17 to bring “parity among all the existing Fellowship and Scholarship schemes,” UGC said.
The revised fellowship will be effective from December 1, 2014. DST scheme has been put into effect since October, 2014.
The UGC is just the implementing agency that selects students and distributes funds. The grant for the RGNF comes from the Ministry of Social Justice (PH & SC) and Ministry of Tribal Affairs (ST) while similar fund for the MANF comes from the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
Abu Saleh, a PhD candidate at the University of Hyderabad, who gets scholarship under MANF and is working on Comparative Literature, was clearly disappointed. “The effort put in by us and the research fellows working under DST or any other schemes is the same. The financial problems faced by us are also the same. If the Finance Ministry has sanctioned the hike for DST scholars, the hike should also be implemented for other fellowship schemes too on the same grounds,” he told TwoCircles.net.
He further said that the UGC has mentioned all the other schemes but seems to have forgotten MANF and RGNF, adding, “There should not be disparity among the various fellowship schemes.”
Since the DST hike, many research scholars have written to the departments concerned and ministries too urging them to review the situation.
The document on RGNF and MANF on the UGC site clearly mentions, “The rate of fellowship for JRF and SRF will be on par with the UGC Fellowship as amended from time to time.” And hence research scholars are still hopeful that the ministries concerned will soon take note and increase their fellowship accordingly.
Dipali Bhoye, a PhD scholar at the National Institute of Virology, Pune wonders: “If they don’t want to hike the RGNF, which is majorly for SC/ST students, then why have they done it for PDF for SC/ST and also PG professional courses for SC/ST?”