'As Our Fellowship Sees Long Delays, Our PhD Dreams Hang By a Thread'

Since January 2025, research scholars from the minority communities have not received their stipends.

Since January 2025, PhD scholars under the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) have not received their stipends.

(Image altered by The Quint/Vibhushita Singh)

"It's very difficult to survive without the stipend. I have taken help from my friends, relatives, and whoever I could... have taken loans from them. The situation is such that I no longer have the courage to ask for more help from them," says Saurabh Anand, a fellow PhD Scholar at Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala.

Since January 2025, the PhD scholars under the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) have not received their stipend. This has posed some serious questions over their sustenance—and their pursuit to continue our research.

MANF, a central government scheme to support scholars from minority communities, including Christian, Jain, Sikh, Muslim, and Parsi, etc, was introduced in 2009.

Initially managed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) under the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the fellowship is now administered by the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC) under the same ministry.

While the government proposed to scrap the fellowship in 2022, citing its overlap with other welfare schemes for students, it promised to pay the existing fellows.

"Due to the delay in disbursal of fellowship, our research work is halted. We are not able to focus on research work and carry out our field work or survey that we were supposed to do. Most of the scholars availing the scholarship are from underprivileged backgrounds. So naturally, they will face the wrath of financial distress because of the delay in fellowship."

Fazal Wakeel, PhD Scholar, Jadavpur University

'Our Future Is In Disarray'

Apart from qualifying for the PhD, one of the criteria to avail the fellowship is to have parents' income less than Rs 6 lakh per year. So, the students come from that spectrum of society where it's "not easy for us to fund our education, research, as well as personal expenses. In these situations, the fellowship works as a backbone."

A fellow scholar, Amanpreet Kaur from Punjabi University, says, "Getting into higher education was my dream. And when I got the fellowship, I thought  I would be able to pursue my dream further."

"For the last five months, we haven't had the fellowship. Even basic survival is difficult for us. We have to bear all kinds of expenses — personal, research-related, house rent, food bills, etc," adds Kaur.

For students living away from their homes for higher education, meeting every day's expenses seems to be a never-ending battle for survival.

While Saurabh is pursuing his PhD from Central University of Himachal Pradesh in Dharamshala, his native town is in Bihar. "I don't know how I'm going to survive... I am from Bihar. It's very difficult to survive without money especially when you've migrated from another state. 

"I have taken help from my friends, relatives, and whoever I could... I have taken loans from them. The situation is such that I no longer have the courage to ask for more help from them."

Saurabh Anand, PhD Scholar, Central University of Himachal Pradesh

We request that the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the nodal agency, and the officials concerned kindly disburse the fellowship stipend as soon as possible.

(According to a report by The Hindu, the Ministry of Minority Affairs told the students in an RTI response that the NMDFC has released the pending fellowship amounts to the respective MANF fellows up to December 2024. The Ministry added, “Further, NMDFC is in the process of receiving funds under the MANF scheme from the Government to release fellowships to the existing MANF fellows.”)

(The Quint has reached out to the NMDFC regarding the issue. A response is awaited, and this story will be updated once a reply is received.)

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