New Delhi, May 13: The government's claim to promote research in public institutions flies in the face of recent decisions by a leading tech school.
The National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, has recently decided to dilute its research fellowship schemes to address the cut in funds released from the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry.
The institute has withdrawn its matching fellowship scheme, under which it used to allot PhD scholars to faculty to match the scholars with the faculty enrolled under sponsored projects. The institute has also decided not to fund the scholars taken under sponsored projects beyond one year of completion of the project.
Former NIT Rourkela director Sunil Sarangi said the decisions would discourage faculty to get sponsored projects, choke research activities and adversely affect the standard of the institute, which had been ranked 12th among engineering institutions in the latest ranking of the HRD ministry.
NIT sources said the senate, the top decision-making body in academic matters, had recently decided to do away with the matching scholarship because of funds crunch. The institute is currently getting Rs 35 crore to Rs 40 crore per quarter against about Rs 50 crore it was getting a few years ago. However, the policy of supporting fellowship for two research students per faculty would continue, the source said.
The NIT gives monthly fellowship of Rs 25,000 for first two years and Rs 28,000 for next three years to research students pursuing PhDs. Every faculty can guide two such students supported with fellowship of the institute.
The faculty member, who perform better and get various sponsored projects of the department of science and technology and other institutions, used to be rewarded with allotment of additional research students. For example, if a faculty had four research students under the sponsored project, he was getting about three additional PhD students under the matching fellowship scheme, taking the total number of research students with him to nine.
Since a project continues for almost three years, the sponsoring organisations usually stop fellowship. In such cases, the institute was bearing their fellowship from its own funds for next two years. Now, it will give fellowship to those scholars for one year from completion of the project.
"Students may not take interest to join research under sponsored projects in NIT Rourkela when they realise that their fellowship will stop before completion of their work. The teachers may not take interest to get sponsored projects," Sarangi said.
Similarly, the withdrawal of matching fellowship will reduce the number of research scholars and research culture in the institute, he feared.
Funds crunch has severely affected the activities in other NITs as well. However, the NIT Rourkela may be pioneer in cutting down on research to address funds crunch.
NIT Rourkela director Animesh Biswas could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.
