SAKUNTALA (Scheme for Aspirants of Knowledge Under Talent Advancement) Fellowship is an unique scheme of the institute approved by the Senate of Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITRoorkee) and the SAKUNTALA Fellowship is an initiative to facilitate higher education for female engineering students in the institute.
Through this fellowship programme, girl students of the centrally funded technical institutes(CFTIs) who are now pursuing engineering courses, or have graduated already, will be able to apply for admission into the IIT Roorkee Ph.D.programs starting with the first admission cycle of the year 2022 (Autumn Semester).
Under this programme, girl students will have an opportunity to nurture their talent in their chosen field and join research work on the campus. The students admitted under this fellowship will be provided with the same fellowship amount and all other similar facilities which are provided under the regular Institute Assistantship scheme.
The 52ndmeeting of the Institute Research Committee held on November 30, 2021, had proposed the fellowship scheme which was approved by the 89th Senate of the Institute on December 9, 2021. In this scheme, any female candidate having a B.Tech./B.E./B.Arch./B.Des.A Degree from CFTIs with a minimum CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) score of 8.5 or higher on the lO-point scale will be eligible for direct admission into a Ph.D. programme.
A major relaxation for the aspirants of higher education under the SAKUNTALA scheme is that the candidates do not need a GATE/CEED/National Level examination score for applying to the Ph.D. programmes of the Institute.
The selection for the admission will be carried out through interviews in the corresponding departments or other academic units. The Institute has also allowed admission of eligible candidates without any restriction in the number of seats.
Prof. Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee, remarked,“IT Roorkee has taken this initiative to improve the number of women research scholars in our Engineering departments. We expect it to make a visible impact and hopefully many other institutions will follow this scheme or something similar to improve gender diversity in Engineering disciplines..”
