PhD students denied fellowship money since 2019, stage protest

PhD students denied fellowship money since 2019, stage protest

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bengaluru:09.02.2021

Around 750 PhD students are yet to receive their monthly fellowship amount of Rs 10,000 since November 2019. Pushed to the wall, 100 PhD of them, mostly from poor backgrounds, protested at Maurya Circle on Monday asking the government to look into their cases.

According to the backward class welfare department, the money is not being paid following a cut in the budget owing to the pandemic. “Around 15 crore has been deducted. We are running 13 programmes with a budget of Rs 5 crore now. Ideally, we need Rs 20 crore to operate these programmes. The issue has been raised by the minister with the finance department. The problem will be sorted out soon,” said Vasant Kumar, commissioner, backward class welfare department.

Students from other backward classes quota are eligible for a monthly fellowship amount of Rs 10,000 from the backward classes welfare department. Implemented in 2015-16 with an initial Rs 5,000, the amount was increased to Rs 10,000 from academic year 2018-19, with the aim of supporting research.

“We need to enrol for our second and third years and have to pay university fee, w hich comes to around Rs 30,000. This is apart from the monthly mess bill. With no fellowship money coming, it’s difficult for us to sustain,” said a student from the University of Agricultural Sciences.

“We have an agricultural background and getting a PhD is a major achievement for us. We’re around 750 students in various state universities and the money means a lot to us,” said another student.

The fellowship is meant for students from families of income below Rs 4.5 lakh and Rs 3.5 lakh