Pending for months, will CSIR disburse fellowship stipends to India's researchers anytime soon?

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) scholars in the country are currently in a fix as they are unsure about when their pending fellowship money will be released. According to the latest tweet by the Human Resource Development Group of the CSIR, which takes care of the fellowships, scholarships and schemes, the pending stipends will be disbursed after 10 days of their  resuming work in their offices, which are closed due to COVID. However, there is no definitive date as to when the office will resume functioning.
 

Since the beginning of 2021, the researchers have been complaining about how they haven't been paid their fellowship stipends for months. Even though there were promises from the CSIR previously, nothing has materialised, according to researchers. Recently, the email of a CSIR research scholar from IISc Bangalore had gone viral on social media. In his email, he mentions how he was finding it difficult to survive. "I have a family of five. In this pandemic due to an extreme financial crisis, I had to break my fixed deposits," he says, adding that a sum of Rs 3.5 lakh had to be paid to him. Following this, the institute had faced a lot of flak from researchers and leaders including Jairam Ramesh.

"CSIR is acutely aware and sensitive to the issue and new leadership has been put into place who is working overtime during the difficult circumstances of the pandemic to bring comprehensive time-bound resolution," its Twitter handle tweeted. Dr Anjan Ray, Head of HRDG, CSIR also held himself accountable for the delay and has asked the researchers to wait for a few more weeks until its systems stabilise.