UGC to release fellowship funds without confirmation from institutes

The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Saturday said that it will disburse the funds for research fellowship without insisting on monthly confirmation from their respective institutions for the eligible research scholars.

The higher education regulator in a public notice stated that the payments of November are being processed now and the pending fellowship amounts till October 2020 have been released.

Earlier, research fellowships were disbursed on quarterly basis but keeping in view the financial needs of research scholars, a system of monthly payment was introduced. The payments are being released through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode which credits the fellowship amount directly to the bank accounts of research scholars, UGC said.

“Keeping in view the Covid-19 pandemic, it was decided to generate the monthly payments even for those research scholars whose monthly confirmation of data could not be uploaded by their institutions on the Canara Bank Portal. Hence, since April 2020, payments are being generated without insisting on the requirements of monthly confirmations from institutions, for all eligible research scholars, whose monthly confirmation was received on the portal during any or all months of January, February and March 2020 i.e. before lockdown…,” UGC said.

Efforts are being made to further simplify the online process for timely disbursal of fellowship, it said.