New Delhi: The Prime Minister's Research Fellowship, already castigated for seeking applicants only from the 60-odd centrally funded technical institutions, has been criticised some more after selecting just 135 researchers for the inaugural batch against the 1,000 slots available.

Applications had been sought only from those who had completed or were in the final year of BTech, integrated MTech or Integrated MSc at these select institutions and had secured more than 8 Cumulative Grade Points Average in their semester exams.

Some 1,800 applications had been received, including about 400 from those who were studying or had completed BTech.

The selection was done this week on the basis of an interview, where IIT professors examined the originality and potential of the candidates' research proposals and the applicants' understanding.

IIT Hyderabad was in overall charge of coordinating selection for the scheme, which provides a stipend about three times the Junior Research Fellowship amount.

An IIT teacher who was part of the selection process explained that so few had been selected because the idea was to "ensure that only the exceptional talents get the fellowship".

"We checked whether their research idea was original, whether the idea would lead to quality research and whether the student could explain the idea with clarity," the teacher told The Telegraph.

Dheeraj Sanghi, a computer science professor at IIT Kanpur and a critic of the scheme's current eligibility criteria, said that allowing students from outside the select institutes "would have helped have a larger pool of candidates".

"Especially because there were 1,000 seats," he said, regretting that students of reputable institutions like BITS Pilani, Jadavpur University or the state government-run Indian Institutes of Information Technology at Hyderabad and Delhi could not apply.

Another IIT teacher who didn't wish to be quoted said the presentation of the research proposal should not have been made a key criterion for selection.

"Some of the final-year BTech students who had applied may not have been able to explain their research subject properly," he said.

"The committee should have gone by the research idea and its potential, and the academic performance of the candidate.'

The institutions whose students were eligible included the Indian Institutes of Technology; National Institutes of Technology; Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology, Shibpur; Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; and the centrally funded Indian Institutes of Information Technology.

Those selected can pursue a five-year PhD degree at any of the 23 IITs and the IISc, Bangalore.

The scheme provides a fellowship of Rs 70,000 a month for the first two years, Rs 75,000 a month during the third year, and Rs 80,000 a month in the fourth and fifth years. Besides, each researcher gets a research grant of Rs 2 lakh a year.

In contrast, the Junior Research Fellowship provides Rs 25,000 a month for the first two years and Rs 28,000 a month for the next three years.

Candidates will be selected for the Prime Minister's Research Fellowship in 2019 and 2020, too, after which a fresh decision will be taken whether to admit more scholars or restrict the scheme to those already admitted.

The selected 135 scholars include 26 researchers in mechanical engineering, 24 in material science and metallurgical engineering, 21 in electrical engineering, 19 in civil engineering and 13 in inter-disciplinary programmes in science and engineering.