Women’s Instinct for Developing and Ushering in Scientific Heights & Innovation(WIDUSHI)

DST's own documents do not agree on when the call is open, and an applicant who trusts the wrong one waits a year. All three statements are current on official pages.

DST's programme page breaks the tie, and not in the applicant's favour. Of the fellowship programmes listed there, WIDUSHI is the only one whose call-for-proposal line stops at "Last call closed on 28.02.2025"; WISE-PhD, WISE-PDF and WISE-SCOPE each add that the next call shall be announced soon (DST, WISE-KIRAN). The portal is no help either: WIDUSHI appears in neither of the two proposal lists e-PMS maintains, the dated active calls table or the proposals-invited-throughout-the-year table (e-PMS, Department of Science and Technology). So read the guidelines' May window as the intended annual rhythm, take the advertisement's open-all-year line as describing a call that is not currently listed, and get the co-investigator's consent letter signed ahead of the next announcement rather than after it.

Two dates matter after the award and neither moves. The utilization certificate and statement of expenditure for each financial year are due within 3 months of 31 March, and the annual progress report runs on the project's own anniversary, so a project that began on 1 October reports for the year ending 30 September (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

The gate is a research record, not a means test. WIDUSHI publishes no income ceiling and no family-income condition anywhere in its guidelines; what it counts instead is projects led and papers published (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

On the degree, the guidelines are wider than the phrase "Ph.D. or equivalent" suggests. They name MD, MS and MDS as equivalent qualifications, which brings clinicians and dental researchers inside a programme most readers assume is closed to them (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST). On publications, the guidelines add a condition the shorter notices leave out: the minimum 20 papers for Category A and 10 for Category B must be in peer reviewed journals carrying both an impact factor and a citation index.

One condition has nothing to do with the applicant's own record, and it constrains the project plan before a word of it is written. A WIDUSHI fellow must name a permanent faculty member as co-investigator, and that person's service has to be due for a period not less than the proposed project period (WIDUSHI advertisement, DST). A five-year proposal therefore needs a co-investigator with five clear years of service left, which rules out the near-contemporary colleague a retiring scientist would most naturally ask.

Age relaxation is the one published signal DST never quantifies for this programme. The scheme asks for an SC, ST, OBC or PH certificate only if the applicant is claiming a relaxation, yet no figure for it appears in the guidelines or the advertisement. DST is perfectly willing to print the number elsewhere in the same family, giving SC, ST and PH applicants 3 years of upper-age relaxation under WISE-PhD, so the silence on WIDUSHI is worth reading as silence: treat the 62-year ceiling as firm until DST prints otherwise (DST, WISE-KIRAN).

Neither the WIDUSHI guidelines nor the advertisement carries a list of who is barred. Four conditions inside the guidelines still work as bars. The co-investigator draws no separate grant under the programme, so a colleague hoping to fund his own line of work through the same sanction cannot. Beyond the fellowship and house rent allowance, no provident fund, leave travel or medical allowance is payable, and DST accepts no liability on any of those accounts. Money cannot be moved between budget heads. And the award names one scientist: it stays with her and goes to nobody else (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

A fifth bar operates from outside the programme, and it runs one way. Accepting WIDUSHI puts the Department of Biotechnology's BioCARe scheme out of reach afterwards, because BioCARe rules out applicants holding or having availed any funding under a women specific scheme of DST (BioCARe Guidelines 2024, DBT).

There is no annual re-application. A WIDUSHI project is sanctioned once, and the money then arrives in yearly instalments that have to be earned with paperwork. Each request for the next instalment carries the utilization certificate and statement of expenditure for the previous financial year, due within 3 months of 31 March, a latest authenticated statement of expenditure including committed expenditure, and a detailed technical annual progress report that sets achieved targets against the timeline the proposal promised (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST). Everything goes up on the online portal with a soft copy by email; DST asks for no hard copy.

Two conditions decide whether the project reaches its fifth year. Subsequent releases follow the reviewing and monitoring committees' recommendations, and DST convenes Group Monitoring Workshops at which principal investigators present their technical progress. Where the work stalls, the guidelines reserve the right to terminate the project at any stage.

An extension exists but it is a poor substitute for planning. The project can be extended by a maximum of six months, at no additional cost, and no fellowship is paid for the extended period (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

The category decides the monthly rate and nothing else; the research grant, the overhead and the assistant are identical either way.

Those monthly figures understate the sanction. Answering Parliament in March 2025, the Ministry of Science and Technology put the full value of one WIDUSHI project at up to Rs 90 lakh for Category A and up to Rs 95 lakh for Category B, fellowship included (PIB, Ministry of Science and Technology, 20 March 2025). That is the number worth carrying into a conversation with a prospective host institute, because it is the figure the institute's own accounts will see.

House rent allowance is payable alongside the fellowship, and DST asks for an HRA declaration before it releases the first grant. The overhead is not the fellow's money: it goes to the institution that hosts her. Equipment bought from the grant is not hers either. Assets acquired under the project are the property of the Government of India, and after the project closes DST may sell them, gift them to the host, or move them to another institute (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

The myScheme record lists what an applicant needs on hand. The guidelines list something narrower and more useful: the five documents that must actually accompany the proposal at submission. They are the endorsement letter from the head of the institution, a certificate from the principal investigator, a consent letter from the co-investigator, a duly signed conflict of interest policy, and the bio-data of both investigators (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST). Of those five, the signed conflict of interest policy is the item that shows up in no summary listing of the scheme's paperwork; it exists only in the guidelines document itself.

A second set falls due after selection, and missing it is fatal in a way that missing a supporting certificate is not. Once the approval letter is issued, the investigator has to furnish the host institute's zero balance subsidiary account details and the HRA declaration, and the project approval stands cancelled if those documents are not submitted within 3 months of the approval letter's date (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

Proposals go to DST's e-PMS portal at onlinedst.gov.in, where the WISE-KIRAN programmes are listed under the heading "Disha Programme For Women In Science", and a first-time applicant registers through New PI Registration before anything else (e-PMS, Department of Science and Technology). The proposal format is a separate download, and DST publishes it in three places: dst.gov.in, onlinedst.gov.in and online-wosa.gov.in, all under the WISE-KIRAN Division (WIDUSHI advertisement, DST).

Tracking works in two stages, and they run on different systems. Until the sanction, the same e-PMS login that submitted the proposal shows its status; the portal states plainly that it provides the facility to track the status of submitted project proposals (e-PMS, Department of Science and Technology). After the sanction there is no personal payment page to refresh, because the money never enters the fellow's own bank account from DST. Releases are assigned against a central nodal agency account into the host institute's zero balance subsidiary account, and the institute pays out through the expenditure, advance and transfer module of PFMS, so a fellow chasing a late instalment asks her institute's accounts office, not DST (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

One warning on the portal is worth reading before the form is filled. The applicant's IP address is recorded through the session, and a principal investigator found to have furnished incorrect or misleading information at any stage has her proposal rejected (e-PMS, Department of Science and Technology).

Screening runs in three rounds, not the two the advertisement compresses it into. A preliminary screening comes first, subject experts review what survives in a second round, and the principal investigators of screened-in proposals are then called to present before the Programme Advisory Committee, which makes the final recommendation (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST). The last stage is an appearance, not a paper review, and DST describes no route to a recommendation that skips it.

Recommendation is not sanction. DST states that its final decision reaches applicants only after administrative and financial approvals have been obtained, which is why the gap between a good presentation and an approval letter can be long (WIDUSHI advertisement, DST). No merit list, no cut-off and no fixed number of awards per year is published for WIDUSHI; the programme is a peer-reviewed grant competition, and DST does not commit in advance to how many proposals it will fund.

For the tenure of the project the fellow is a temporary employee of the host institute, governed by its service conditions, reporting on its duty hours, and appearing in an attendance register the institute keeps for DST to inspect. DST states that it carries no liability whatsoever for her once the project ends (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

The co-investigator's role goes well beyond signing a consent letter. Should the principal investigator step away mid-project, the co-investigator inherits the duty of settling it technically and administratively. The financial close-out is a separate obligation on the host institute: unspent money back, with a utilization certificate, a statement of expenditure and a retention letter covering equipment bought under the sanction. A change of host institution is allowed once in the whole project, and not in the first six months or in the final year; both institutions must issue no objection certificates and the new one an endorsement certificate.

Three obligations travel with the money. Scientific Social Responsibility asks the fellow to spend at least 15 days per year taking the work to a wider audience through internships, workshops, lectures or popular writing. On leave the guidelines set two ceilings and one cliff: 15 continuous days away, 30 days in aggregate, prior consent from DST past either, and termination if she is gone for three unbroken months without telling the Department. Every publication from the project has to acknowledge the WIDUSHI research grant of the WISE-KIRAN Division with the sanction reference number, and DST advises the principal investigator to be either the first or the corresponding author (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

On results, protection comes before publication. Where findings are to be legally protected they should not be published until protection is secured; the host institution owns and files the patents at its own cost, and if it cannot file within 6 months of deciding to, DST may file jointly and share any earnings equally. An institution that earns from such intellectual property must set aside at least 15% of those earnings in a patent fund. Collaboration with a foreign individual or industry needs DST's prior approval, and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India may inspect the project accounts at his discretion (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST).

Queries on WIDUSHI go to the WISE-KIRAN Division at enquiry-wosdst@gov.in, the address printed in both the guidelines and the advertisement, on the division's telephone line 011-26534166, or by post to the Department of Science and Technology, Technology Bhavan, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi-110016. The guidelines route requests for specific clarifications to two scientists inside the division, but they publish no separate line or mailbox for either, so the division address is the working route in every case. Once a project is sanctioned, correspondence changes shape: the guidelines require every letter to quote the sanction order number and date and to be addressed to the concerned official by name (WIDUSHI Guidelines, DST). Portal and login problems are a separate queue, handled by the e-PMS support address pmso.dst@nic.in (e-PMS, Department of Science and Technology).