The Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship pays 70,000 rupees a month in years one and two, 75,000 in year three and 80,000 in years four and five, plus a research grant of 2 lakh a year — 10 lakh over five years. Those figures come from the PMRF scheme’s own fellowship page, read directly. The second thing worth knowing in 2026 is institutional rather than financial: the Science and Engineering Research Board no longer exists as the body scholars remember, and its schemes now sit under the Anusandhan National Research Foundation. Advice that tells you to “apply to SERB” is describing a body that has been superseded.
Key finding: the PMRF amounts, verified at source
| Component | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Fellowship, year 1 | ₹70,000 per month | PMRF scheme fellowship page, read August 2026 |
| Fellowship, year 2 | ₹70,000 per month | PMRF scheme fellowship page |
| Fellowship, year 3 | ₹75,000 per month | PMRF scheme fellowship page |
| Fellowship, year 4 | ₹80,000 per month | PMRF scheme fellowship page |
| Fellowship, year 5 | ₹80,000 per month | PMRF scheme fellowship page |
| Research grant | ₹2 lakh per year, ₹10 lakh over five years | PMRF scheme fellowship page |
Two conditions attach to the tenure and they are easy to miss. For students entering from integrated courses, the fellowship runs to the end of the fourth year of the PhD; for those entering with a B.Tech or equivalent, to the end of the fifth year. For scholars selected through the lateral entry channel, the scholarship and its obligations continue only for the remainder of their stay in the doctoral programme, and the scheme states plainly that no retrospective payment will be made. The scheme also notes that industry participation is explored through CSR funding or otherwise, to enable industry to sponsor Fellows.
The institutional change: SERB is now ANRF
The Anusandhan National Research Foundation is the body that now runs the national research grant portfolio, and its own site groups a set of programmes explicitly under the heading “Erstwhile SERB Schemes” — including the Core Research Grant, the Start-up Research Grant and Intensification of Research in High Priority Areas. That heading is the clearest possible confirmation, from the successor body itself, that the older name has been superseded rather than merely rebranded in passing.
Alongside those, the ANRF portfolio lists a range of programmes and fellowships including the National Post Doctoral Fellowship, the Ramanujan Fellowship, the J. C. Bose Grant, the Prime Minister Early Career Research Grant, International Travel Support, the Inclusivity Research Grant, MATRICS, Partnerships for Accelerated Innovation and Research, the National Science Chair and the Prime Minister Professorship, together with mission programmes in areas from critical raw materials to AI for science and engineering.
Why this matters for a thesis writer rather than just an applicant: if you cite a funding body in your acknowledgements, your methodology chapter or a grant application, cite the one that currently exists. A reference to a superseded authority dates a document instantly and, in a funding application, suggests the applicant has not looked at the portal recently. This is the same class of error as citing a frozen journal list as though it were live, which we cover in our guide to verifying a journal in India.
What we could not verify, and why we are saying so
This section exists because the alternative — repeating numbers we cannot trace — is how unsourced figures propagate through student writing.
- Current UGC-NET JRF and SRF monthly rates. Widely quoted across secondary sites, and revised periodically by notification. We are not reproducing a figure we did not read in a current primary notification; check the UGC’s own site or your fellowship award letter, which is authoritative for you personally.
- Number of PMRF fellows awarded to date. The PMRF site has a statistics section, but the page we reached served a dashboard that loads its content dynamically and returned no readable figures to our tools. That is a limitation of how we fetched it, not a statement about what a student sees in a browser — open it yourself.
- Aggregate national research expenditure and its share of GDP. Frequently quoted, rarely with a traceable and current citation attached. If you need it for a Chapter 1 justification, take it from the issuing body’s own publication with the reference year stated, and say which year it is.
- Scheme-level eligibility and award details on the ANRF site. The site serves the same page content for every scheme path we requested, so the programme names are citable from its navigation but the individual scheme conditions are not something we can quote at second hand. Open each scheme page in a browser and read the current call document.
This habit of separating what is verified from what is merely repeated is the same discipline your data chapter needs, and it is the organising principle of our roundup of what is verifiable in Indian research and higher education data.
How to cite a funding figure in your thesis
Four rules keep a funding claim defensible. Name the issuing body and the document, not a news article reporting it. State the date you accessed it, because scheme amounts are revised by notification and a figure without a date is unfalsifiable. Quote the amount in the units the source uses — if the scheme says 2 lakh per annum, do not silently convert it. And distinguish an entitlement from an average: a scheme’s published stipend is what a selected fellow receives, not what a typical Indian research scholar earns, and conflating the two is a common slip in Chapter 1 justifications.
If funding appears in your thesis only in the acknowledgements and the ethics declaration, those four rules still apply. Funding sources are also a declarable interest in most journal submissions drawn from thesis work.
Funding and the clock run together
The practical trap for a scholar in year four is not the funding amount but its end date. A fellowship tenure and a candidature ceiling are two different dates, and they are frequently not the same — the PMRF tenure rules above are a good example, running to the end of the fourth or fifth year of the PhD depending on entry route, while the national candidature ceiling is a separate calculation set out in our guide to how long a PhD takes in India under the UGC regulations.
Put both dates in the same calendar. Scholars who discover the gap late find themselves writing the most demanding chapters of the thesis in the months when the stipend has stopped, which is the worst possible sequencing and is entirely predictable a year in advance.
Writing while the funding clock runs
Funding buys time, and time is only useful if the writing keeps pace with the research. The scholars who finish inside their tenure are rarely the fastest researchers; they are the ones whose chapters existed in draft while the work was still going on.
Tesify keeps your chapters structured and every citation attached to a real source as you draft, so the months your fellowship pays for produce a document rather than a folder of notes. The research and every claim in it stay yours.
Start writing your thesis in Tesify
Frequently asked questions
How much does the PMRF pay?
₹70,000 per month in years one and two, ₹75,000 in year three and ₹80,000 in years four and five, plus a research grant of ₹2 lakh per year, totalling ₹10 lakh across five years.
How long does the PMRF fellowship last?
To the end of the fourth year of the PhD for students entering from integrated courses, and to the end of the fifth year for those entering with a B.Tech or equivalent. Lateral-entry selections continue only for the remainder of the student’s time in the programme.
Does the PMRF include a research grant separate from the stipend?
Yes. Each Fellow is eligible for a research grant of ₹2 lakh per year, ₹10 lakh over the five years, in addition to the monthly fellowship.
Is SERB still accepting applications?
The schemes scholars associate with SERB are now presented under the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, which groups several of them explicitly as erstwhile SERB schemes. Apply through the ANRF portal and cite ANRF.
What is ANRF?
The Anusandhan National Research Foundation, the body that now runs the national research grant and fellowship portfolio, including the Core Research Grant, Start-up Research Grant, National Post Doctoral Fellowship, Ramanujan Fellowship and J. C. Bose Grant among others.
Can I hold a fellowship and do paid work?
That depends entirely on the terms of your specific fellowship and your institution’s rules, and the conditions differ between schemes. Read your award letter rather than relying on what a senior scholar tells you.
What is the current UGC-NET JRF amount?
Rates are revised periodically by notification, and we are not reproducing a figure we have not read in a current primary source. Check the UGC’s own site, or your award letter, which governs your case.
Does my fellowship end date match my submission deadline?
Often not, and the mismatch is the single most common funding surprise in year four. Diary both dates as soon as you know them.
Do I need to acknowledge my funder in the thesis?
Yes, in the acknowledgements, and usually as a declared interest in any journal article drawn from the work. Name the body as it currently exists.
Are there fellowships specifically for part-time scholars?
Scheme eligibility varies and many national fellowships assume full-time candidature. Read the current call document for the specific scheme rather than a summary of it.
How should I cite a scheme amount in Chapter 1?
Name the issuing body and the document, give the date you accessed it, keep the units the source uses, and do not present a scheme entitlement as an average income for research scholars.
Where can I check these figures myself?
The PMRF scheme site publishes its fellowship amounts on its own fellowship page, and the ANRF site lists its current programme portfolio. Both take a few minutes to read and both are more current than any article about them.