Centre decides to hike researchers’ fellowship following prolonged protests

New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday announced a quantum hike in fellowship of research scholars following prolonged protests by research scholars demanding revision in scholarship amount.

The amount will be in addition to entitlements enjoyed by them such as house rent and medical benefits and comes into effect from this month itself. The decision was announced by science and technology minister Jitendra Singh. “Each ministry and other agencies can now use these hikes as guidelines to make suitable changes to their specific fellowship programmes,” he told reporters.

He said that the government will also do a periodic evaluation of the fellowship and put in place a web-based fellowship assessment and disbursement mechanism so that delays in disbursement mechanisms are stopped.

The decision will put an additional burden of about Rs 750 crore on the exchequer. With the across-the-board hike, a junior research fellow will get Rs 25,000 per month, a jump of Rs 9,000 per month. Likewise, a senior research fellow will get Rs 28,000 per month, a hike of Rs 10,000.

The hike in case of a research associate (I) will be from Rs 22,000 to Rs 36,000 per month, in case of research associate (II) it will be from Rs 23,000 to Rs 38,000 per month and for research associate (III) the hike will be from Rs 24,000 to Rs 40,000.