Mumbai University scholarship and fellowship funds held back

Mumbai: The Mumbai University (MU) research students are desperately waiting for the varsity to provide scholarship and fellowship money which is being held back since October last year. That’s not all. The university has also hiked the fees of all courses, putting the students in a greater fix.

The MU is supposed to provide a fellowship of Rs 8,000 per month to students registered under the full-time Ph.D. programme. This is applicable only to non-National Eligibility Test (NET) full-time Ph.D. scholars who don’t receive any fellowship/scholarship/salary from any source. For the past couple of months, the students of the Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) course have been protesting the matter and requesting officials to solve it. Hardik Gancha, a MU research student, said, “While on the one hand, they have not paid us any money since so long, on the other hand, they have increased all the fees. I am from outside Maharashtra and find it terribly difficult to manage my expenses. Like me, there are plenty of students in our department who are suffering.”

A MU official said that the reason was lack of funds from the UGC.