Friday, July 24, 2015

Plight of Researchers: An Open Letter to Canara Bank & UGC by the Research Scholars of India

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is to bring in your notice about the late disbursement of fellowships which affects many thousands of research scholars of the country. I, Abu Saleh, like most of other scholars solely depend on my fellowship. But since the fellowship amount is not credited timely, like many of my fellow scholars, I too suffer a lot. We literally face times when we do not have money to support ourselves. We feel really dejected that we have been pushed down to the level of beggars who have to cry every month for what we deserve as scholars.

Our problem is that we don't get our fellowship timely. It is ironical that the Canara Bank was chosen over university system for the delivery of scholarship in 'first week of every month' as mentioned in our award letter and everywhere. As no necessary step has been taken to solve this long time grievance of many thousands of scholars, our lives have become a wait. Our energy and time are lost much in this process which can otherwise be utilized for fruitful research. We are not even able to concentrate on our research, as we are constantly worried about the lack of money for our basic needs.

I don't know whom to blame? Is the assigned Canara Bank which is more worried about their business and generating money out of interest or the bureaucracy of UGC responsible for all these? We call and beg you (Canara Bank and UGC) almost every day for the money we deserve and when you leave us baffled with a mutual blame game, we do not know what to do to get our problem resolved. We wait almost endlessly every month but the hostel authorities will not wait for the mess fees to be remitted; the university authorities will not wait for the tuition fees to be remitted; the labs and our work cannot wait for the essential chemicals, tools and instruments to be used from time to time.

I know this might sound little emotional but this is the ground reality of the researchers in India. Sometime we wonder and regret of our choice of research over other promising career which would have at least not left us in this situation. Please imagine when you don't get your salary during the first week of the month. And we just wait and wait. Please do not punish us more for choosing to face the challenges of a career in research to contribute to the academic development of the country.

I request the concerned authorities at UGC and Canara Bank to look in to the pathetic situation and do the needful at the earliest to resolve the late disbursement of our fellowship. Please act immediately to solve our problem; please give us our monthly fellowship at least within the first week of every month; please let us do our work peacefully and properly.

 

Thank You

Abu Saleh (on behalf of myself and other research scholars of the country like me)


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Thanks & Regards:

Abu Saleh
PhD Research Scholar @ Centre for Comparative Literature (CCL)
School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad (UoH), India.
Mobile: +91 94 94 24 26 45

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