Bhubaneswar, Feb. 6: Utkal University students today demonstrated on the campus demanding an increase in the number of PhD and MPhil seats in various fields.

"Many students wanting to join research courses cannot take admission because of the dearth of seats," said Utkal University Students' Union president Mahesh Prasad.

The varsity has 27 departments and 270 MPhil seats.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) governs the guidelines for admitting PhD students. A varsity teacher said: "According to guidelines, aspirants selected through various fellowship programmes are being given priority for PhD courses. Consequently, other aspirants are finding it difficult to get into the PhD programmes."

Another hindrance for aspirants is restriction on the number of students to be enrolled under professors and assistant professors, according to the UGC guidelines. "The university has limited number of faculty members and most of them have enrolled the desired number of PhD students under them," said another faculty member.

Vice-chancellor A.K. Das said the varsity did not have power to increase research seats. "To increase the number of seats for PhD courses, the varsity needs to increase the number of faculty members, which is apparently not possible," said Das.