New Delhi, June 8: “Save the research world, Enhance the scholarships...” said a slogan at the entrance of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). About 250 research scholars from IIT Delhi, JNU, AIIMS, ICMR, ICGB, and DU today held a dharna against the discripancies in the fellowship amount regarding the Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs) and Senior Research Fellowships (SRFs) of different bodies.

“We spend our lives for the scientific advances of the country, and in return we have to face such disparities. Today a person working in a call centre gets more than what we are given,” said SK Ojha, PhD student at AIIMS.

The Indian National Science Academy and Indian Academy of Sciences as part of the XI five year plan recommended an increment in scholarships. According to the recommendations, the stipend for JRFs was proposed as Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000 for SRFs. The trouble actually arose when UGC went ahead independently without consulting the other funding agencies to put their proposal into action. Department of Science and Technology (DST) then came up with the proposal of Rs 12,000 and Rs 14,000. DST is the parent funding agency for CSIR-DBT and ICMR.

Parul Saxena, a PhD student in AIIMS said: “Last year the Indian National Science Academy(INSA) and the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS) recommended increment of scholarships in to the Finance Minister but we are waiting for the proposal to be executed till now.”

The students blocked the gate of DISR and demanded a word with Dr T Ramaswamy, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST). They were allowed to talk to the members of DST where they came up with the status of the proposal. According to the proposal, scholarship amount will be Rs 12,000 for JRF, and Rs14,000 for SRF and it was to be implemented from April 1, 2007. The demonstrators were assured of a positive response within 20 days.