Chennai: The University Grants Commission (UG C) has substantially increased the fellowship grant for research scholars from this month to encourage more research in colleges and universities. Accordingly, the PD F fellowship for women has been increased from Rs 25,000 to Rs 35,800. Those who do research in social sciences would get Rs15,500 instead of Rs10,000.
The increase in the fellowship amount would motivate more students to pursue research as a career option, UGC Vice -Chairman Prof H. Devaraj told DC from New Delhi. “The country needs more researchers and to increase the number significantly we need to make remuneration attractive and match it with the salary of a lecturer.”
Welcoming UGC’s decision to increase the fellowship grant, Ramesh, a research scholar in one of the government universities, said that research scholars depended more on the fellowship as they did not have any other source of livelihood.“This increase now helps us make a decent living as in the past the fellowship was not sufficient to last us through the month,” he said.
The UGC’s order has gone down well with faculty too. J. Gandhiraj, professor of chemistry at R.K. M. Vivekananda College, Chennai, said that this would help students from economically weaker sections. “In the past stipends use to be low and not many students took up research as a career, but this will help many more students to opt for it,” he said.
