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NEW DELHI: The 371st Report of the Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, has raised concerns over funding shortfalls, low fellowships, infrastructure gaps and prolonged vacancies at the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR) and Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), warning that present support levels are misaligned with their “critical functions”.On ICHR, the panel said “the current budget for the ICHR” remains inadequate and “re-emphasises the need to increase the budget for the Council given the critical functions it conducts”. It pointed out that the Junior Research Fellowship “is limited to 80 students across the country” and the stipend of “Rs 17,600… is inadequate given that the UGC’s JRF is Rs 37,000 per month”. It recommended “an increase in the fellowship amount as well as to the number of students who receive the fellowship”.The committee also flagged that “the ICHR is the only Research Council without a permanent campus of its own” and called for “a speedy resolution of the matter and the establishment of a permanent campus for the ICHR”. On expansion, it supported proposed regional centres in Jammu and Kashmir, Varanasi and the Northeast, while stressing that existing centres must be “better leveraged” with proper buildings, libraries and conference facilities. The panel cautioned against long additional charges, noting that the member secretary is holding “additional charge of director (research and administration)” and said “the practice of assigning additional charges needs to be avoided, especially for long periods of time”. It also underlined the need for research that “takes a subcontinent-wide view of history”.For ICPR, the committee noted that the JRF stipend “is only Rs 17,500 – a figure which has not been revised in many years and which is inadequate given that the UGC’s JRF is Rs 37,000 per month”, and recommended “an increase in the fellowship amount as well as the number of fellowship”.On ICSSR, the panel said “the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission have still not been implemented in ICSSR research institutes and regional centers” and observed that “the diminished pay scale makes recruitment of faculty members at the research institutes very challenging”. It recommended the “immediate implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission” and timely adoption of the next pay revision.
