PhD fellowships in Tamil Nadu

Which of Tamil Nadu’s three schemes fits your college and community?

First see where you are studying and which community you belong to. Most of the confusion gets sorted with those two points.

If your college is aided or self-financing, CMRF is not open for you. You may still get the Adi Dravidar Welfare incentive, because it only asks for a recognised institution in Tamil Nadu. A scholar in an Anna University department can try for ARF, and community is not a condition there. One more point about the old scheme. The ₹25,000 CMRF came in place of an earlier state scheme, which paid ₹5,000 a month to 120 scholars under G.O. No. 60 of 2009 and G.O. No. 252 of 2018. Some seniors still talk about that one, but it is not running now.

How do you qualify for the Chief Minister Research Fellowship through TRB?

The Chief Minister announced this fellowship on 30 August 2022, at the Vice-Chancellors’ conference. After that G.O. (Ms.) No. 53 of 27 February 2023 created the scheme, and the qualifying exam was given to the Teachers Recruitment Board. As of September 2026, TRB’s notifications page shows only one CMRF call. That is notification No. 02/2023, dated 16 October 2023, and we are describing that call only. There was no application fee. Applications were taken online till 15 November 2023.

Eligibility in the 2023–24 call

• You should be a native of Tamil Nadu and hold a postgraduate degree from an institution in the state. Students in final semester of PG were also allowed to write the test, subject to passing.
• Minimum 60% in the PG degree. For SC, SCA, ST, differently-abled and women candidates the cut-off was 55%.
• The PG degree should come after the normal 10+2+3 pattern or its equivalent, and from a UGC-recognised institution.

The test

The test is for three hours and 100 marks. Part A runs one hour, with 40 objective questions marked on an OMR sheet. Negative marking is there, one mark gone for each wrong answer. In Part B you get two hours for six descriptive questions of ten marks each. Differently-abled candidates get four hours in total. Pass mark is 50 out of 100, and for SC, SCA, ST, differently-abled and women candidates it is 45. The merit list is prepared as per the test ranking. G.O. No. 53 also records that the Director of Collegiate Education proposed an interview for the first 300 candidates. In the 2023–24 notification there was no word about interview. Check the current call once before you prepare.

Seats were given subject-wise, ten for each group. The arts side had six groups. One was Tamil and English literature, and another was history, tourism and geography. Political science and public administration made a group. Commerce, management and social work made one more, and economics stood on its own. The sixth arts group was a mixed one covering media, music, fashion, library science, physical education and psychology. On the science side the groups were mathematics and statistics, physics and electronics, chemistry and biochemistry, the life sciences, computer science and IT, and lastly environmental science, geology and home science. For preparation we suggest one thing. Part A has negative marking, so guessing will cut your marks. Put more of your time into Part B, where a scholar who can explain a research problem clearly in writing gains the most. Our research proposal guide gives good practice for that kind of writing.

The G.O. clearly says the scheme does not have to fill all 120 places in every year. If a candidate crosses the threshold and also shows research aptitude, only then the award is given. Final say is with the Directorate of Collegiate Education, as per its discretion.

What happens after a CMRF award: registration, joining and renewal?

The guidelines annexed to G.O. No. 53 are written almost like an agreement, and the time limits in them are strict.

• You must join within six months of the award letter, and register for the PhD within six months of the award. If you are still not registered after one year, the fellowship is stopped till you register. As per the guidelines, no separate entrance test is needed for joining the PhD.
• For a scholar who is already registered, the fellowship starts from the declaration of the CMRF result. Others get it from the date they join as a research fellow.
• Every three months you have to send a continuation certificate, and every six months a progress report. The award is first given for two years. After that some experts will look at your work. Third year you get only when they are satisfied with it.
• Leave is fifteen days in a year, apart from public holidays. Over the full tenure you can take at most one month of academic leave, and that month is without fellowship. Changing your place of research is allowed only once, with approval of the monitoring committee.
• Paid work of any type is not allowed. If your guide agrees, you can help the college with tutorials, evaluation or lab work, up to ten hours per week.

Once three years are over, the fellowship stops. If you submit the thesis before that, it stops on submission itself, and no extension is given. Payment comes through direct benefit transfer, so keep a bank account that is seeded with Aadhaar.

How does the Adi Dravidar Welfare PhD incentive choose 2,000 scholars?

G.O. (Ms.) No. 72 dated 16 September 2024 fixed this incentive at ₹1,00,000 a year. It is given to 2,000 Adi Dravidar, Scheduled Tribe and Christian Adi Dravidar scholars from Tamil Nadu. They must be doing a full-time PhD in a recognised institution in the state. Part-time scholars are not covered. How long you get it is decided by G.O. (Ms.) No. 24 of 24 February 2025. It runs for the duration your university allows, or till the year you submit your thesis, or for five years, whichever is earliest.

For 2025–26 the instructions put three more conditions. Family income should be ₹8 lakh a year or below, and you need at least 55% in the PG degree. For age, men can apply up to 50 and women up to 55. Women, differently-abled and transgender applicants get priority. A scholar who is already studying on a stipend or salary is not eligible. If you are working in government or a college, you can’t apply, even if on leave without pay.

Don’t rush to apply on day one thinking it helps, selection is not first-come. Renewals are paid first, and the remaining seats go to fresh first-year applicants in fixed subject shares. Linguistics has 10%. Education, commerce, management, architecture, mass communication and design together get 20%. Pure science gets another 20%, and applied science, medicine and engineering have the biggest share of 40%. The balance 10% is for all other subjects. When one subject has more applicants than seats, scholars from universities ranked by QS, UGC or NIRF are taken first. Inside science, priority goes to advanced science, medicine and technology. If there is still a tie, the older applicant gets it.

• Register on adwphdscholarship.in and fill the online form, either as fresh applicant or as a renewal applicant.
• Attach the community certificate, income certificate, PG mark sheets, Aadhaar details and the certificate that shows your PhD admission.
• Get the printed form signed by the head of your institution. The registrar of your university also has to recommend it.
• Send it to the Commissioner of Adi Dravidar Welfare, Ezhilagam Annexe, Chepauk, Chennai 600005. In 2025–26 the last date was 31 January 2026, 5.45 pm.
• Apply again every year. Renewal status is given only to a scholar who got the incentive in the previous year. Renewals are paid first, and only then new applicants are looked at.

Per month, ₹1,00,000 a year comes to around ₹8,300, which is roughly one third of CMRF. Still it is much easier to get. There is no test, and the quota is 2,000 scholars compared to 120 for CMRF.

Does Anna University pay its own full-time scholars?

Yes. In fact the newer scholarship pays more than the older fellowship. The July 2026 PhD advertisement promised 250 Research Scholarships of ₹40,000 monthly for full-time scholars. These are for the four Chennai campuses (CEG, MIT, ACTech and SAP), the constituent colleges and the government engineering colleges. Regional campuses, aided colleges and self-financing research centres are not named in the advertisement. If your centre is one of those, write to the Centre for Research and get a reply before you depend on this money.

The older scheme is called the Anna Research Fellowship. It came through a Centre for Research circular dated 2 February 2022 and started from the July 2022 session. Every year 50 full-time scholars in the university departments get it, 20 in the January session and 30 in July. The amount is ₹31,000 a month, with HRA as per AICTE norms. For eligibility you need 75% (or a CGPA of 8.0) in both UG and PG degrees. A GATE, NET or CAT score from the last five years also works. Selection is through a written test and interview.

The conditions here are mostly about research output. As per the circular, you are expected to present at a conference in the second year. You should also publish one paper in a journal that is on the Centre for Research’s approved list. Each year there is a technical review. Your third year depends on the expert committee, they must recommend the renewal. In every paper and presentation you have to thank the fellowship. If you are thanking it in the thesis also, our Anna University thesis format guide shows the layout the university wants. To know how Anna University admits PhD candidates at the start, read PhD admission in Chennai.

One warning here. In September 2026 we checked the fellowship details page on the Centre for Research website, and it was empty. Because of that we could not confirm whether ARF still runs on the 2022 terms. Please check with Centre for Research before you plan your money around it.

Is CMRF’s ₹25,000 a month always worth more than the incentive?

You cannot hold both the state schemes together. A CMRF fellow has to certify that no other emoluments or stipend will be accepted. And the Adi Dravidar incentive is refused to anyone already studying on a stipend. Because of these two conditions, you also cannot pair either scheme with a national JRF.

Take the case of an Adi Dravidar scholar who clears the TRB test and gets placed in a government arts and science college. For most scholars in that position, CMRF gives better money, ₹3,00,000 a year against ₹1,00,000. Still the incentive is a sound fallback. It works well for scholars in aided and self-financing colleges. It also helps those in engineering or medicine, since the CMRF subject list does not cover these subjects. Are you in one of Chennai’s government colleges affiliated to the University of Madras? For the thesis rules of those colleges, check our Madras University thesis format guide.