I remember the day I heard that final year M.A students could get stipend. I was a freshie back then, and being slightly naive and enthu, I heeded seniors’ call when they asked junta to troop into CLT for the formal function to inaugurate final year stipend. As usual, not many students had turned up, and a near empty CLT consisting mostly of final year students and a few freshies greeted the dignitaries. I remember Arun Sudarsan and Deepak Johnson on stage and distinctly remember being slightly in awe with the student representatives; I also remember one of the dignitaries saying something along the lines of final year M.A students doing top notch research work that needed to be recognized. Other details are hazy and I am guessing that the date of the function was sometime after the 31st October 2013, but two details about the stipend stand out in my memory – one, we were going to be paid 6k a month and two, the source of our stipend was to be the International and Alumni Relations Office.
The stipend didn’t trouble me anymore after that for the next three years (except perhaps a couple of manifesto making and review sessions) until one fine day, it was time for me to start thinking about my stipend. During this brief interlude, the stipend had grown in size to 10k and no longer restricted to just the final semester – students now had the option of getting half the money for half the work for 10 months a year! Furthermore, the idea of my monthly pocket money multiplying several times over was something I was keen about – even the revelation that I was being given charity (the stipend comes from the Alumni Charitable Trust) failed to dent my eagerness to get the money. My classmates shared my enthusiasm – earning 5k for working just three hours a week as as a research assistant or teaching assistant to professors / working on things like revamping the library or cataloguing the curriculum / working in the IAR office seemed pretty cool – till one fine day, my class representative, the ineffable Sannihit, brought the class’ attention to a small problem.
The stipend is paid out of the interest earned from a fund and totals Rs 10,50,000 a year. Divided amongst students at the rate of Rs 5000 a month, the stipend money allows for 21 students to “lead cushy lives” for 10 months, and all these years, the eligibility criteria (a minimum of 7.5 CGPA for SC/ST students and 8 for the rest) ensured that there was sufficient money for eligible students. Till we came along, that is. If there was ever a doubt about HS13’s academic orientation, the stipend crunch that we suddenly faced put it to rest. Astonishingly, 25 of the 42 people in my class had a CGPA greater than 8 at the end of 8 semesters (29 if you relaxed the criteria by a few decimal points), and questions of Grade Inflation and other things aside, we were suddenly confronted with the idea of a reduction in stipend. The choice before us were two – one, all eligible students could decide to accept a cut in the stipend amount so as to allow all eligible students to get stipend, or two, the top 21 could get the full stipend amount while the rest of were left high and dry. Obviously, we chose the former, but thankfully, Melwin and Sannihit managed to meet the Dean (International and Alumni Relations) in the meanwhile and convinced him to sanction the additional money needed to ensure complete stipend for all of us. This, unfortunately, happens to be a stop-gap arrangement – the Dean apparently made it clear that the same could not be repeated every year.
This leaves the department with a few choices. The first, and the most unpopular, I would presume, is to tackle the problem of Grade Inflation and ensure that such a skewed ratio does not recur. The second option would be to enlarge the size of the pie through generous contributions from alumni, but the feasibility of that is questionable. The third and last option would be to write to MHRD requesting for stipend for M.A students as well. While that does sound appealing, concerns exist with regard to a possible hike in tuition fees for M.A students (to place us at par with M.Tech students receiving stipend), and this being the case, approval of the Department Student Body seems to be necessary for taking this step. One can only hope that a speedy resolution to this problem is found.
In the meanwhile, an infusion of cash into IIT Madras’ economy seems imminent.
P.S Shout out to Melwin and Sannihit for painstakingly creating a database of part-time opportunities for students in insti! Anyone in the department can currently work for 12 hours a month and make money out of it! 😀 For further details, check out the email titled Earn while you learn || In IITM || During the semester in the MA-DoHSS Google Group!
P.P.S RuTAG is a good opportunity. Go for it!
Venkataraman Ganesh
Article 19 