In a recent high-level meeting Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, has proposed a Common Single Application for all Scientific Fellowships, Grants and Scholarships.
Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh today proposed a Common Single Application for all Scientific Fellowship, Grants and Scholarships.
Presiding over a high level meeting of all Secretaries of the Science Ministries and Science Departments, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the streamlining of the Fellowships and Research Grants will not only save cost and time, but will provide a level playing field to all the students and help achieve “Ease of Science Education” for students and scholars.
The meeting also saw the presence of Dr Shekhar Mande, Secretary CSIR, Dr. M. Ravichandran Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr Rajesh Gokhale Secretary Department of Biotechnology, Dr S. Chandrasekhar, Secretary Department of Science & Technology and other senior officials.
Dr Jitendra Singh informed that currently there are number of schemes under Ministry of Science & Technology (MoST) and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) providing scholarship/fellowship to students, researchers at different levels (School/UG/PG/PhD/Post-doc/RA/re-entry from abroad).
He said, for example, CSIR and DBT, both conduct separate examination for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and similarly, DST, DBT and CSIR have schemes for Postdoc/ Research Associateship and Re-entry from abroad.
However, all these departments have separate advertisements and interview/selection processes and thus students/researchers have to apply at different portals in different formats and face multiple exams or interviews which lead to hardship among students.
This situation is not only time consuming for students but also lot of time and resources are deployed in process of selection to disbursement of grants by the funding agencies.
Accordingly, Dr Jitendra Singh constituted a Committee for streamlining the Fellowships and Research Grants under the Chairmanship of Dr Shekhar C. Mande, Secretary, DSIR and DG, CSIR and Secretary DST, Secretary DBT, Secretary MoES as Members. Dr. Anjan Ray, Head, HRDG and Dr.Sanjay Mishra, Senior Scientist are other two members.
Centralized Project Management Unit (PMU)
The Committee has recommended that a dedicated Centralized Project Management Unit (PMU) should be established which will manage all the operations, processing, disbursements related to fellowships and project funding from a single place.
PMU could comprise of professional outsourced staff and nodal/ representatives from each of the Department. In due course, the portal will be supported by 24×7 Call Centre, Grievance Redressal Section.
Also read: Daimler and Benz foundation scholarship programme 2022
24×7 Call Centre
Further, they will guide the Students/Researchers/PIs/Institutions for correct paperwork. The 24×7 Call Centre, correct paperwork & scrutiny papers for fellowship/grants and their automated processing could be taken care of by PMU.
It must be noted that the Operational Expenses (both Capital & Recurring) of the PMU/Proposed Centre could be borne equally by DST, SERB, DBT and DSIR/CSIR. The expenses on the fellowships would be borne by concerned departments as done at present. So this all about the recent notification about the Single application for all Scientific Fellowships Grants and Scholarships soon in India
Join Our Telegram channel for the latest updates Click here https://t.me/whatisresearch
