Students protesting outside the UGC office against the scrapping of non-NET fellowships marched to the HRD Ministry on Thursday, demanding that the “review committee” for the same decision be dissolved.
HRD Minister Smriti Irani came out for a brief interaction with the students and reiterated the Government’s stand that the fellowships will not be discontinued and the recently-constituted five-member panel will review the scope and criteria for the grant. However, the students demanded the comm-ittee be dissolved if there is no move to scrap the fellowships.
“We have been protesting for the last 17 days. If the Government says the fellowships have not been discontinued then why do they need to review the decisionIJ We demand the panel be dissolved,” said Shehla Rashid, vice-president, JNU Students’ Union.
The students were led by Swaraj Abhiyan leader and former UGC member Yogendra Yadav in the protest march. Yadav, who was the commission’s member when the committee was formed to “broaden the scope” of the non-NET fellowships, has earlier also come out in support of the agitating students and had spent a night at the protest venue. The UGC had resolved to discontinue the scheme of non-National Eligibility Test (NET) fellowship, which is provided to those undertaking research in central universities across India, in a meeting held on October 7, citing shortage of resources.
Amidst protests by the students against the scrapping of the non-NET fellowship, the Government had last week appointed a five-member panel to review the research grants offered by the UGC, which, meanwhile, has been asked to continue all existing grants.