New Delhi: For the B Tech degree holders, enrolment into PhD programme will henceforth require minimum 8.5 CGPA. From January 2018, if a student graduating from IIT is rejected during the campus placements, he will be debarred him from enrolment into PhD programmes too. These are part of the new criterion laid down by the Ministry of HRD.

Sources said that the HRD Ministry wants to strengthen its faculty all over the country. So the rules and requirement for PhD programme has been revised. This new set of rules will come into force from Janury 2018.

Under the new regulations, each PhD student will get stipend of Rs 75000 per month. This will make the research prgramme more attractive among the students. The HRD Ministry sources said that around one thousand student will be enrolled every year for PhD programmes.  In case a PhD scholar quits this course in the middle, he will be required to refund the entire amount received as stipend.

This step is being initiated as the Government doesn’t want the PhD programme to be just a parking lot. Data with the IITs show that if getting a doctorate is difficult, landing a campus placement after PhD seems impossible.

The percentage of campus placement of PhD students was 22 per cent in 2013-14, 24 per cent in 2014-15 and 18 per cent in 2015-16. This, however, is the percentage of PhD students who had registered for placement