PM's research fellowship gets lukewarm response

New Delhi: With Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) receiving only 1,890 applications for 1,000 Prime Minister Research Fellowship (PMRF), it seems research scholars have given a thumbs down to the ambitious scheme which was launched to attract the talent pool of the country to doctoral (PhD) programmes of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for carrying out research in cutting-edge science and technology domains with focus on national priorities.

In reply to a question, Higher Education Secretary R Subrahmanyam told Millennium Post that 1,890 applications have been received for Prime Minister Research Fellowship and the review of applications is still on.

It's worth mentioning that the HRD Ministry received 1,212 applications in just four days as till April 9, only 678 students had applied for the PM's flagship programme. The last date for online submission of the application was April 13.

Explaining about the poor show, a senior faculty in IIT said, "No doubt, the fellowship programme is a best one, but it's the paucity of time that restricted teachers as well as students from applying for the programme."

"It's a hard fact that most of the research works are being looked after by the assistance professors in most of the IITs, who are already overburdened with the research works of their institutions, so finding time for PMRF is another challenge for them," the faculty said, adding that since, the PMRF is a time-bound programme, most of the students 'decided' to stay away from it.

As per the PMRF programme, the selected applicants would be offered admission to PhD programme in one of IITs/IISc with a fellowship of Rs 70,000 per month for the first two years, Rs 75,000 per month for the 3rd year and Rs 80,000 per month in the 4th and 5th years.

Apart from this, a research grant of Rs 2 lakh per year would be provided to each of the fellows for a period of 5 years to cover their academic contingency expenses and for foreign/national travel expenses.

According to HRD Ministry's website, call letters for interviews would be issued from Wednesday (May 2) onwards, while the interviews at nodal institutions would be conducted from May 14 onwards and the results would be announced by June 25 this year. As per the HRD portal, all the dates are tentative in nature.

The Union Cabinet had approved the PMRF on February 7 with the objective to promote quality research in the field of science and technology in the country.

Under the PMRF scheme, students who have completed, or are pursuing, the final year of four-year undergraduate or five-year integrated MTech or five-year integrated MSc or five-year undergraduate-postgraduate dual degree programmes in Science and Technology streams from IIEST/IISc/IITs/NITs/IISERs and centrally funded IIITs are eligible for admission to full-time PhD programme in the IITs & IISc provided they fulfil prescribed eligibility criteria.