Govt revises Ramalingaswami Fellowship Grant to 1 Lakh

NEW DELHI, FEB 17: The Fellowship grant given under the Ramalingaswami Fellowship program has been revised to Rs. 1 Lakh from previous Rs. 85,000. The number of Fellowships has also been increased from 50 to 75 Fellows at a given time.

Dr. Meenakshi Munshi, Adviser, Department of Biotechnology, during her interaction with the press after the 8th Ramalingaswami Conclave announced that the Fellowship has been revised from Rs. 85,000/- plus HRA 7,500/- per month to Rs. 1,00,000/- plus 18,500/- HRA per month.

The Ramalingaswami Fellowship program is a flagship scheme of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India that is designed to attract Indian talent working abroad to come home.

The eighth conclave of the Ramalingaswami Fellows has been organized by Department of Biotechnology and National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi as this is the tenth year of the Fellowship, it was an occasion to take stock of the progress and assess its input.

The Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship was conceived with the idea of encouraging scientists (Indian Nationals) working abroad who would like to return to the home country to pursue their research interests in Modern Biology, Biotechnology, Life Sciences and other related areas.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan indicated that the principal objective of the scheme is to improve the country’s human resource capacity in Life Sciences, Modern Biology and Biotechnology research-in terms of development, translation and diffusion by converting ‘brain drain’ into ‘brain gain’.

During the last ten years, 1492 applications were received and out of these 396 were offered the fellowship and 283 have already taken up positions in Indian laboratories. So far, 190 fellows have obtained permanent faculty positions in various host institutions in India. Fellows have excelled in their research.

They have published 833 research papers in peer-reviewed national and international scientific journals. Further, 53 new technologies have been developed by them, of which 33 have been patented and two have been converted into start-up companies. A number of Ramalingaswami Fellows have received various awards/recognitions, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (two Fellows).