AICTE Hikes 50% Scholarship for the MTech Students, 1.5x times more Fellowship Amount each Month

 There’s been a recent decline in the number of students in the MTech Course. This has led the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which is India’s leading technical education regulator, to propose a hike in the postgraduate level scholarships given to the eligible students.

AICTE has currently proposed to the Ministry of Education to hike the monthly scholarships given to the students by 50% from the existing amount of Rs. 12,400 per month to Rs. 18,600 per month.

The AICTE first wrote to the Ministry of Education last year in the June month to increase the minimum amount of scholarship for the students to be a minimum of Rs. 18,600. This is a proposed hike of 50%. It also mentioned that the last increase in the scholarship was made in the year 2015. So, a reminder in this matter was sent to the Ministry along with some other recommendations, such as the financial support in the early March, this year 2025. 

On 18th February 2015, the Ministry of Education wrote to the AICTE and all the institutions like the IITs, NITs, and IISERs telling them of the revision in the Scholarship rates in all the AICTE approved and Centrally funded Technical Institutions for the PhD and ME/MTech programmes. The MTech program scholarship was increased from Rs. 8000 to Rs.12,400 per month basis. It was a roughly 50% increase in the scholarship each student, a similar hike is requested by AICTE this year too.

Last year the AICTE has referred the Ministry of Education in the spiking decrease of the enrolments in the postgraduate engineering and technology programmes in all the AICTE-approved institutions.

There is an approved intake of total 1.81 lakh students which fell in the year 2018-19 to around 1.30 lakh students in 2023-24. The enrolment fell from 66,862 (63% of seats vacant in 2028-19) to over 44,000(66% of seats vacant in 2022-23). There was also a drop in the total number of postgraduate students admitted with the scholarship scheme - the number halved from 11,926 in 2018-19 to 5176 in 2022-23. 

Qualification for Scholarships in PG Programmes

To get the scholarships in the postgraduate engineering courses, the student needs to qualify the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) exam. The scholarship is solely meant for the students who are enrolled in the AICTE-approved Postgraduate programmes, and the AICTE-approved institutions. The number of scholarships would be limited to the AICTE-approved candidates. Students who get the financial assistance from other sources, or are “sponsored candidates” or the candidates enrolled through the management quota are not eligible for the scholarship opportunity.

AICTE has also requested the MoE (Ministry of Education) to grant the postgraduate scholarships to the graduates from any AICTE-approved institutions, in the AICTE-approved courses, who have scored an 8.5 CGPA or above, without having to appear in the GATE exam.

Last year in 2024 an expert committee meeting was held by the AICTE in the month of May. The experts found the scholarship amount Rs. 12,400 per month to be absolutely the base amount. And, so the Ministry of Education (MoE) can be requested to increase the amount from 12,400 per month to 18,600 per month. AICTE has also pointed out that the individual fellowship amounts for both Junior Research Fellows (JRF) and Senior Research Fellows (SRF) was increased from Rs. 31,000 to Rs. 37,000 for JRF and Rs. 35,000 to Rs. 42,000 for SRF on the monthly basis.

Sources of the AICTE said that the decreased enrolment in the MTech courses was a concern for the postgraduate degrees, like the teaching jobs in engineering colleges and universities. For the decline in the interest to study further, the reasons they pointed out were going abroad for higher studies or choosing to work soon after the BTech.