BSR Fellowship Scheme for Science Students - UGC(BSRFSSUGC)

Overview

About BSRFSSUGC

UGC never opened this fellowship to science students at large. The UGC guidelines for BSR Fellowships in Sciences for Students reach only a candidate a UGC-identified department has already selected for a PhD, and a UGC letter to registrars dated 12 January 2007 capped each of those departments at five fellowships. Today the commission's Basic Science Research bureau lists one line of work against the scheme, settlement of old cases up to 30 June 2016, and no fresh call has followed it.

The scheme's formal name in UGC's own files is the Research Fellowship in Sciences for Meritorious Students, shortened to RFSMS, and the BSR label comes from the Basic Scientific Research programme that paid for it. UGC launched it under the XI Plan and wrote to 111 science departments holding Special Assistance Programme status in state universities, 6 universities with potential for excellence in science and 10 centres with potential for excellence, sanctioning up to five research fellowships in each identified department at a value of Rs 8,000 a month with a contingency grant of Rs 6,000 a year (UGC letter F.4-5/2006, XI Plan).

Two features set it apart from the doctoral awards UGC runs on a national test. The gate was the department: a candidate qualified because the department admitting them carried a UGC excellence tag, and the university itself constituted the interview panel and picked the fellows. And the money followed the PhD admission rather than a NET or GATE result, though holding either of those changed which rate the fellow drew (UGC guidelines for BSR Fellowships in Sciences for Students).

Where the scheme stands now needs to be stated exactly, because the wording differs from the usual closure. The last intake decision anywhere in the Empowered Committee's minutes is from February 2016, when the committee extended the last date of selection of BSR fellows for the year 2014-15 to 30 April 2016 (minutes of the 74th meeting of the Empowered Committee). Two months before that, the same committee had proposed folding the fellowships into NET-JRF. UGC has published no formal closure notice and the guidelines document is still online; what the commission stopped doing was calling for fresh fellows.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The scheme never ran on an annual calendar, so the only dates that exist are the ones in its own file.

The last row is the useful one for anyone still holding an award letter. In April 2017 the Empowered Committee approved a BSR fellow at ICT Mumbai to continue her PhD without disruption of the fellowship as a special case, up to December 15, 2018 or the date of thesis submission, whichever came earlier (minutes of the 81st meeting of the Empowered Committee). Individual cases were still being decided years after the last selection round closed.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Eligibility ran through the department first and the candidate second. Only someone selected for registration in a PhD programme, through the university's regular admission procedure, in a Centre of Advanced Studies, a Department of Special Assistance, a University with Potential for Excellence or a Centre with Potential for Excellence identified by UGC could apply, and the PhD registration itself was allowed to follow the admission (UGC guidelines). A strong science graduate at a university without one of those tags was outside the scheme, whatever their marks.

The subject coverage was wide inside that boundary. The guidelines applied to all departments of sciences, bio-sciences, agricultural sciences and engineering sciences of the eligible universities, so a candidate in agronomy or in a science-facing engineering department sat under the same rules as one in physics.

The eligibility test tightened once. The 2007 text required the candidate to have already registered for a PhD in a science subject; the revised guidelines moved the test earlier, to selection for registration, which let a department pick its fellow during admission rather than after (UGC XI Plan letter). Neither version sets an age limit, an income ceiling or a category quota, and clearing NET or GATE was never a condition of entry.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Nothing on this scheme's public record is filed under exclusions. The guidelines carry the equivalent inside the cancellation clause, and it is strict: a fellow already availing a scholarship or fellowship from any other source, a fellow found to be employed during the M.Phil or PhD research, a candidate later found ineligible, misconduct, and any false information furnished by the applicant or fraudulent activity by the awardee (UGC guidelines).

Two of those bite at the moment of selection rather than later. A candidate already holding a fellowship or a project from another organisation had to surrender one of the two, and the award required full-time research under an approved guide, which put part-time and distance doctoral candidates outside it.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Renewal was an evaluation, not a renewal form. The tenure began as two years; when the research work was found satisfactory the fellow moved to senior research fellow emoluments for the remaining period, on a recommendation the committee sent to the UGC designated agency in a prescribed proforma. Work judged unsatisfactory at the two-year mark bought one extra year for improvement, with a fresh evaluation after three years and two further years if the work had improved, capped at five years in total with no provision for extension (UGC guidelines).

Between those evaluations, one quarterly document kept the money moving. Every third month the fellow lodged a Continuation Certificate at the designated bank branch, and until it was in, the next quarter's money did not fall due. A separate hold sat at the end of the award: the last two instalments were released only after the fellow submitted the research work and the required publications to the UGC INFLIBNET repository.

What you get

Award & benefits

The rate depended on whether the fellow had cleared GATE or NET, not on the subject or the university.

Those are the last rates UGC published for the scheme, and they are the third set it published. The award opened at Rs 8,000 a month with a Rs 6,000 annual contingency (UGC XI Plan letter). An intermediate revision paid non-GATE fellows Rs 14,000 a month for the first two years and Rs 16,000 for years three to five, and GATE-qualified fellows Rs 16,000 and then Rs 18,000, with the contingency already at Rs 12,000 and Rs 25,000 a year (earlier UGC guidelines).

There was no flat housing allowance. What a fellow drew for accommodation turned on where the institution put them. A fellow given hostel accommodation could draw only the hostel fee, excluding mess, electricity and water charges, and no house rent allowance; where the institution had no hostel and provided single accommodation instead, the rent actually paid was reimbursed up to the government's HRA ceiling; and a fellow who arranged their own accommodation drew HRA by the government's categorisation of cities (UGC guidelines).

Leave and medical cover were thin by design. No fixed medical assistance was paid, and the fellow used whatever facilities the host institution had. Leave ran to a maximum of 30 days a year on top of public holidays, with no summer, winter or pooja vacation, plus maternity or paternity leave at full rates once during the tenure (UGC guidelines). Academic leave without fellowship, for up to one year, was possible in special cases for a teaching assignment or academic travel abroad, and that period still counted against the tenure. The fellowship itself was credited straight into the fellow's bank account through the UGC designated agency.

• Financial Assistance: Fellowship: For GATE/NET Qualified candidates: JRF @ ₹24,800/- per month for 2years
• SRF@ ₹27,900/- per month for remaining period
• For others: JRF @ ₹21,700/- per month for 2 years
• SRF @ ₹24,800/- per month for remaining period
• JRF @ ₹12,000/- per annum
• SRF @ ₹25,000/- per annum
• Notes: The tenure of fellowship is initially for two years under the BSR scheme.
• Upon expiry of this period, If the research work is found satisfactory, his/her tenure will be extended further for a period of five year under the enhanced emoluments as SRF.
• The recommendation of the Committee shall be submitted to the UGC designated agency for Upgradation to the level of RGNF-SRF in the prescribed proforma (Annexure- VI). - In case the work for the first two years is not found satisfactory, an additional year will be given to him/her for improvement. In such cases work will be evaluated again after three years, and if improvement is found, the Fellow will get two more years under the BSR. Thus, the total period of fellowship is five years, with no further provision of extension.
• It may be noted that the fellowship amount shall be disbursed through UGC designated agency into the bank account of the Fellow directly.
• HRA: Suitable hostel accommodation may be provided to the candidates in the institutions. In such cases, the fellow is eligible to draw only hostel fees excluding mess, electricity, water charges, etc. A certificate to this effect is to be furnished through the Registrar/Director/Principal. HRA is not permissible for those candidates who are staying in Hostel accommodation.
• In case of non-availability of hostel accommodation, the fellow may be provided with single accommodation by the host institution. In such cases, the rent paid by the fellow on actual basis may be reimbursed subject to the ceiling of HRA as per Govt. of India norms.
• If the fellow makes her own arrangements of accommodation, he/she may be entitled to draw HRA as per categorization of cities by the Govt. of India.
• Medical: No separate/fixed medical assistance is provided. However, the Fellow may avail the medical facilities available in the University/Institution/College.
• Leave: Leave for maximum period of 30 days in a year in addition to public holidays maybe taken by the BSR Fellow with the approval of the Head of Department. However, they are not entitled to any other vacations, such as summer, winter and pooja vacations.
• Candidates are eligible for maternity/ paternity leave at full rates of the fellowship as per Government of India rules once during the tenure of the award.
• The fellow, in special cases may be allowed by the Commission, academic leave without fellowship and contingency for a period not exceeding one year during the tenure of award on the recommendation of the Head of the department of the institution concerned to undertake academic/ teaching assignment or foreign travel in connection with academic work. The expenditure on travel cannot be claimed from UGC. The period of leave without fellowship will be counted towards the tenure.

What to prepare

Documents required

Under documents, the scheme record names no more than any direct benefit transfer would need. What a fellow's file actually ran on was a numbered annexure series, each one signed by the awardee, the PhD supervisor, the head of department and the registrar or director: the Joining Report at Annexure-I, the quarterly Continuation Certificate at Annexure-II, the Yearly Progress Report at Annexure-III, the contingency account with its utilisation certificate at Annexure-IV, and the HRA certificate at Annexure-V (UGC guidelines).

Aadhaar became compulsory for disbursal from the financial year 2016-17, on a Ministry of Human Resource Development instruction UGC reproduces inside the guidelines, so an old case without a seeded Aadhaar number stalls at the bank rather than at the department. Closing the award needed its own file too: a comprehensive report, a copy of any published work and an abstract of the research in about 500 words, followed by the PhD or M.Phil completion certificate (UGC guidelines).

Step by step

How to apply

No application route is open, and there was never a central one to reopen. A candidate applied to the identified university or institution, not to UGC, and the university's selection committee decided (UGC guidelines). There was no national portal, no National Scholarship Portal form and no advertised annual window; the myScheme record still shows the application mode as offline with no opening or closing date.

A legacy case moves on a portal the fellow cannot log into. UGC put one up on the Canara Bank scholarship site to capture data for eligible scholars and shift legacy non-DBT cases onto the DBT platform, and the login belongs to the university, institution or college. The institution uploads the master data, refreshes it every month as fellows continue, upgrade, change their housing claim or resign, and an account number that has not cleared PFMS validation yields no beneficiary ID at all (UGC guidelines). The practical consequence for anyone chasing an unpaid instalment is that the correction has to be made by the institution, because UGC pays against what the institution has uploaded and nothing else. Scheme queries go to the BSR section at bsrsection.ugc@gmail.com, the address the bureau page publishes for it.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection was an interview run by the university, before a committee whose composition the guidelines fixed: an eminent scientist nominated by the vice-chancellor, the head of the department, one professor and one reader from the department nominated by the vice-chancellor, and two experts from outside the university nominated by the vice-chancellor out of a panel proposed by the head of department (UGC guidelines). UGC did not rank candidates centrally and did not run a written test for the award.

That decentralised design is what the Empowered Committee eventually argued against, and its reasoning is the clearest statement of why the scheme wound down. Meeting on 22 December 2015, the committee held that selecting candidates on the marks obtained in the post-graduate degree was not appropriate given the divergence in methods of evaluation adopted by various universities, and, to avoid anomalies in selections, proposed merging the BSR fellowships with NET-JRF by enhancing the number of fellowships in science disciplines awarded through the NET-JRF examination by 600 a year (minutes of the 73rd meeting of the Empowered Committee).

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The bar on other income was absolute. For the whole tenure the fellowship had to be the fellow's only earnings from any appointment, held or accepted, paid or unpaid. One carve-out sat in the same clause: with the guide's or the head of department's consent, a fellow could take on the department's own academic work, provided it did not hamper the research programme in hand (UGC guidelines).

Reporting ran on two tracks. Yearly progress reports went to the university through the supervisor for periods ending in June and December, and a half-yearly report on the research went up through the senior faculty member and the head of department. Sitting for any examination conducted by a university or a public body during the tenure needed prior permission from both the institution and the commission.

Walking away had a procedure and sometimes a cost. Relinquishment was to be informed to the identified agency with intimation to UGC, and the grant was released only up to the date of relinquishment. At its meeting on 2 March 2017, the Empowered Committee accepted one BSR fellow's resignation with effect from 1 April 2016 and directed her to refund the fellowship amount availed as on that date (minutes of the 80th meeting of the Empowered Committee).

Get help

Contact

Scheme queries go to the Basic Science Research section of UGC at bsrsection.ugc@gmail.com, which is the address the bureau page publishes for the section, alongside the bureau head and the officers holding the file with their direct numbers. Post for the BSR Section goes to Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110002, the address standing at the head of the scheme guidelines (UGC guidelines). For a stalled payment on an old award, the first stop is the host university's own research or scholarship section, since it owns the master data the bank pays against.

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

Explore more

Related scholarships

References

Sources