Researchers to get money equal to IAS entrants

The University Grants Commission has decided to increase the scholarship amount for junior research fellowship (JRF) by 35 to 40 per cent. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Aug 18, 2009, 01:44:29 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to increase the scholarship amount for junior research fellowship (JRF) by 35 to 40 per cent.

The move will ensure that researchers get money almost equivalent to the basic pay — Rs 20,800 per month — of entry-level Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officials and assistant professors UGC has also decided to hike scholarships for women pursuing post-doctoral fellowship by about four times.

With this, women without research experience will get Rs 25,000 (which was Rs 6,000 earlier) while those with experience will get Rs 30,000 per month as against Rs 8,000 earlier. The contingency grant for these women scholars has been increased to Rs 50,000 per annum.

The commission, earlier this month, decided that junior research scholars will now get Rs 16,000 per month (Rs 12,000 earlier) for first two years and Rs 20,000 (Rs 14,000 earlier) for the next three years.

The physically challenged researchers will get an escort allowance of Rs 2,000 per month along with the scholarship.
“The scholarship amount has been enhanced so that scholars don’t leave mid-day to join teaching,” UGC chairperson Sukhdeo Thorat said.

The new scholarship amount — to be available to 6,500 researchers every year (doubled as compared to last year) — will be applicable from the new academic year 2009-10.

Only students who have cleared the National Eligibility Test will be eligible for the scholarships.

The proposal to enhance the scholarship was taken after a recommendation by RP Aggarwal, Higher Education Secretary in the HRD ministry. “The fellowship amount should be increased to 50 per cent subject to the condition that it is less than initial pay for a fresh appointee as assistant professor,” Aggarwal had told UGC in letter on July 30.

With this, the UGC is looking to meet the demand for faculty with requisite research credentials and PhD degrees.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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