Exam for research fellowship cancelled due to ‘discrepancies’; new test on Jan 10

However, students were in for a surprise as the question paper turned out to be exactly the same as that of the State Eligibility Test (SET) 2019.

Several students and student groups like NSUI (National Students’ union of India) and University Student Struggle Action Committee raised questions about due diligence in the procedure of student fellowships and called for the resignation of the coordinator of CET cell.

A meeting of officials from the three institutes was held Tuesday at Savitribai Phule Pune University in which it was decided to cancel the exam held on December 24.

The CET cell announced that another entrance exam will now be held on January 10.

The CET cell coordinator Balasaheb Kapadnis refused to comment on the matter and the registrar of Savitribai Phule Pune University which conducted the exam across Pune, Nagpur, Kolhapur and Aurangabad remained unavailable for comment.

These three fellowships have been in the news for various reasons ranging from inadequate stipends to delayed payments, discrepancies in intake and delayed admissions as well as multiple student protests.

Most recently, a controversial decision to limit the intake of scholars to 200 each was met with opposition from students who demanded that all eligible candidates should be awarded the fellowships like earlier.