Steady fall in research grants
The government has been steadily reducing the funding of UGC for major research schemes, as a result of which the research environment in universities is suffering. The Major Research Project has been closed since the academic year 2015-16 and several others in the following years.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has stopped several research schemes because of the stopping of funding by the Union government. As a result, over the period of five years, from the academic year 2015-16 to 2019-20, the data for which has been gleaned from the UGC’s annual reports by The Telegraph, the number of existing beneficiaries has been decreasing as researchers finish their projects.
The UGC website suggests that several big research promotion schemes have been closed, the biggest of which is the Major Research Project (MRP), closed since 2015-16. The funding came down from Rs 107 crore in 2015-16, benefitting 2,900 researchers, to Rs 3.27 crore in 2019-20, benefitting a mere 335 researchers.
The UGC website suggests that around half-a-dozen other research promotion schemes have also been shelved.
The Emeritus Fellowship, Dr S Radhakrishnan Post Doctoral Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences, Post Doctoral Fellowship to Women Candidates and Post Doctoral Fellowship to SC-ST Candidates are shown as “closed” since 2017-18. The National Fellowship for Scheduled Caste Students is shown as discontinued from 2018-19.
“Funds are still being released for some of the schemes that are closed because the researchers get paid in phases,” an UGC official told The Telegraph.
If this is not bad enough, the UGC’s Scheme for Trans-Disciplinary Research for India’s Developing Economy (STRIDE), launched in 2019 to promote innovative solutions for regional, national and global problems, has been gathering dust—despite 35 institutions selected for research capacity building.
Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) president AK Bhagi, who belongs to the BJP-backed National Democratic Teachers Front, said that “research and infrastructure funding should increase for universities and colleges”.
Former UGC secretary RK Chauhan said the government has reduced funding for the UGC because “it fears that the findings [of research] will not suit its narratives”, and this is affecting the research environment in universities.
