Gujarat varsity puts a time bar on PhD aspirants

Gujarat University puts a time bar on PhD aspirants Ahmadabad research cell of the Gujarat University(GU) has decided to cancel the registration of those PhD aspirants who do not complete their research in four-and-a-half-year. The university has also decided to register at least 400 candidates for PhD research annually from the current academic session, an increase of 200 per cent from the previous year. After a meeting on Sunday, which was chaired by Vice-Chancellor Parimal Trivedi, it was resolved that a warning would be issued to every PhD student after four years to complete his or her work within the next six months. In case they fail to do so, the university will cancel their registration altogether.

According to sources, hundreds of research students who registered themselves with the university much before 2005 are yet to submit their research works for evaluation. It was also decided to prepare status report of the research students annually and get these printed by the research cell for circulation among the research students as well as guides and different faculties.

At present, the university has 706 research students registered with it, the maximum number of registrations being 208 in 2011. There were only 13 research students in 2005, 17 in 2006, 23 in 2007 and 88 in 2008, 90 in 2009 and 110 in 2010.

Trivedi told reporters on Monday that the university would spend Rs 10 crore annually on research students to provide them scholarships and other expenses required for research purposes. He said the university faculties were not registering many PhD students earlier for lack of guides. However, he said, he had roped in the services of many professors working in the colleges affiliated to GU as also other institutions to take up the assignment of research guides.

There are about more than a dozen new subjects in which GU will be registering candidates for PhD from the current session. The new courses are forensic sciences, human genetics, biomedical technology, animation, space sciences, computer applications and networking, journalism, labour welfare, Gujarati diaspora, satellite communications, biochemistry, food and nutrition, tourism, insurance, financial market, social issues pertaining to Gujarat and India, library information science and Jainism.