The Central government has formed an empowered committee to enhance the fellowship of PhD students and to workout the incentives for research scholars in a month or two, Indian Express has reported.

The committee will have officials from various ministries, who will look into all fellowship related matters such as the value, quality and experience of doctoral research, including the quantum of fellowship, Department of Science and Technology secretary Ashutosh Sharma was cited in the report as saying. Sharma was speaking at press conference at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) science centre.

“We want to look at the value of PhDs in a holistic way. PhD students are the backbone of a country’s progress as they strongly contribute to various fields. An empowered committee has been formed to bring all ministries together to periodically visit the quantum of fellowship and incentivise research,” Sharma was quoted in the report as saying.

He added that the committee was likely to take a call on the incentivisation of top class research within a month or two.

The Modi government, in a move that will directly benefit around 60,000 research fellows, had last week announced hike in fellowships.

“Sometimes the quantity of research gets marred by the quality of research, which may not be up to the mark. This gap needs to be reduced and quality of research can be improved by improving the incentives for it,” Sharma said.