

“We are much keen on increasing PhD seats as the aim is to increase our research output and provide innovative and affordable technological solutions necessary to meet the requirement of our country as well as society,” the source added.



The HRD minister has assured the IITs of making a proposal to the government for rolling out a new fellowship scheme to support research scholars. “The proposed Prime Minister Research Fellows (PMRFs) programme would seek to support at least 1,000 PhD students every year,” the source said.

Students of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) securing at least a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 8.5 in BTech will get direct admission to PhD programmes. Such students will be entitled for a fellowship of Rs 60,000 per month for a period of five years at the premier technical institutes from next year. Besides, they will also get “a suitable research grant”, to cover the expenses like attending international conferences required to complete their research projects, a Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry official said.The IITs, particularly the seven older ones, are set to increase their PhD intake by at least 20% in the next three years, starting from the academic session of 2017-18. The council of the premier technical institutes agreed to increase the seat intake to one lakh by 2020, particularly at the post-graduate level, accepting a proposal of the HRD ministry. This came at a meeting of the council chaired by HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar in August.“We will increase our intake by 20% over the next three years, particularly the post-graduate level. We will admit more students to the PhD programmes from next year,” an official source in IIT Delhi told DH. The institute is considering increasing the number of MTech seats.