Three days after the announcement of the 24 per cent hike in the research stipend, the lowest percentage hike in the past two decades, the Department of Science and Technology has now constituted an empowered committee to decide performance-based enhanced fellowship. According to the Department's recent Official Memorandum (OM), the ministry will now pay one-time incentives to scholars who have had publications and patents.
Publication in an international journal will pay the scholar an incentive of Rs 50,000, one in a national journal will qualify for an incentive of Rs 20,000 and a patent will qualify for Rs 100,000. It also says that researchers must have at least one publication to avail their fellowship.
While the researchers who were disappointed with the hike amount welcomed the new move, they are still unclear about a lot of things mentioned in the OM. "It doesn't specify if the hike incentive will be paid once a year or once throughout the research period. If latter is the case, then this will be of no use," says Nikhil Gupta, National Representative and Coordinator of Research Scholars of India.
A group of researchers are set to meet Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Science and Technology on Monday, to understand the memorandum well and to get clarity on the new recommendations. "It is really soon to comment if the recommendations are good or bad for us. We can only get a clearer idea after the meeting with the minister. We'll also express our disappointment towards the hike and hike for non NET scholars and MTech students," says Vickey Nandal, PhD Students Council Member, IIT Delhi.
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