Hyderabad: It took up to 30 years for 10 students of Osmania University to complete their Doctor of Philosophy (Ph D), a report by Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) revealed. The report flagged that 57% of students took longer than the stipulated time and completed their degrees between seven and 30 years.According to the report tabled in the assembly on Monday, 1,222 scholars of 2,887 had completed their PhDs within the stipulated timeline during the 2017–18 to 2022 period, contrary to university guidelines. As per varsity rules, the tenure of the PhD programme for a full-time research scholar was four years from the date of admission, extendable by a maximum of two years. For part-time scholars, the tenure was five years, extendable by up to a year.Of the 1,665 students, 10 took between 26 and 30 years to complete their PhD, 25 took between 21 and 25 years, 86 took between 16 and 20 years, and 369 took between 11 and 15 years to complete their PhDs.“Govt, in its response (Feb 2024), stated that in response to scholars’ representations, the university, in a meeting held on Jan 5, 2022 with deans of all faculties, resolved to extend the last date for submission of the PhD programme for candidates availing ‘one-time changes’, keeping in view the Telangana agitation and the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report said.OU vice-chancellor Kumar M also cited the one-time relaxation as one of the primary reasons why students who failed to complete their PhDs within the stipulated time were eventually able to finish them.“It was a policy decision taken back then. We are now streamlining the process. In the future, we won’t see these issues cropping up. In fact, we have already closed the opportunity for the 2017–18 batch to complete their PhDs,” he added.University officials pointed out that when the relaxation was introduced in 2022, even non-serious candidates used the opportunity to complete their degrees, and said that hardly 10% of these students might have had genuine reasons for not completing their PhDs on time.
