Plagiarism and similarity reduction in Mumbai

What similarity figure does each Mumbai university accept, and who checks it?

Almost everywhere it’s 10%. But the checking office, the tool and the certificate differ. Our plagiarism limits guide compares universities across India. The Mumbai detail is here.

Two gaps are worth knowing. First, the University of Mumbai never names a tool. R.PhD.19(4) says only that the software is prescribed by the UGC or the university from time to time. So your centre may use DrillBit, Turnitin or something else. Second, look at the Homi Bhabha National Institute, whose Mumbai units include BARC and the Tata Memorial Centre. Its authorship guidelines declare zero tolerance and ask each constituent institution to buy its own detection software. They also note that under UGC rules a thesis above 10% attracts a penalty.

How does the University of Mumbai count what is and is not plagiarism?

Regulation R.PhD.31 of the 2026 PhD regulations adopts the UGC’s 2018 plagiarism framework almost word for word. Three parts of it change how you should read a Mumbai report.

What is taken out before judging the figure. Clause 5 has a long list of exclusions. Quoted work that is attributed or in the public domain is out. So are references, bibliography, table of contents, preface and acknowledgements. Formulae, names and addresses don’t count, and nor do standard symbols, equations, laws and generic terms. Any single match below 1% is excluded. For a scholar’s thesis, matches with your own published papers or patents are excluded too. The clause also lets through common knowledge or coincidental phrases of up to fourteen consecutive words. So a raw report that counts your reference list or your own paper overstates the figure. The person signing it can apply those exclusions.

What must have no similarity at all. The same clause says the abstract, summary, hypothesis, observations, results, conclusions and recommendations must be original. A 7% report isn’t safe if most of that 7% sits in your conclusions chapter.

Who decides. Complaints go first to the department’s academic integrity panel, the DAIP. The Head of the Department chairs it. Its other members are an academic from another department, nominated by the head of the institution, and someone the Head nominates for knowing anti-plagiarism tools. The DAIP’s findings pass to the Institutional Academic Integrity Panel. Each panel is expected to finish within about 60 days. Levels climb for repeat offences. And if plagiarism is proved after the degree is awarded, the degree can be put in abeyance.

R.PhD.31 also makes a course of at least two credits in research ethics compulsory for every PhD scholar. That holds even if you’re exempted from the rest of the coursework. Our coursework and RPE guide covers what that course usually contains. For the certificate and undertaking pages, see our guide to the Mumbai thesis format.

Which software checks a thesis at SNDT, IIT Bombay, TISS and the University of Mumbai?

It depends on the library. And the national scheme that supplies most of them has changed tools. An INFLIBNET letter of October 2019, kept on SNDT’s library pages, lists the Maharashtra institutions that had joined the ShodhShuddhi plagiarism detection service. The University of Mumbai, SNDT, TISS, NMIMS, IIT Bombay, ICT, IIPS and IGIDR were all on it. So was the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, whose affiliated colleges include the city’s medical colleges.

• SNDT. Section 18 of the 2022 regulations sends the soft copy through the Head of Department to the Director of the Bharatratna Maharshi Karve Knowledge Resource Centre. The Head then passes the certificate back to you and your supervisor. The library’s NAAC evidence file shows its licence for URKUND, later renamed Ouriginal, obtained under ShodhShuddhi. ShodhShuddhi now supplies DrillBit instead, so ask the library which tool it runs today. Our DrillBit guide explains how that report reads.
• IIT Bombay. The Central Library runs Turnitin. Its instructions say students get access through their supervisor or the library’s journal section. Users must set each assignment to submit papers to “no repository”, and must not use Quick Submit. That setting matters. A draft stored in the repository can later match your own final thesis. At submission, the online thesis guidelines want the library’s Summary of Similarity Index Report in the forms file. Bound in the thesis goes the revised Specimen C on academic honesty.
• TISS. The Sir Dorabji Tata Memorial Library’s plagiarism page says it uses Turnitin, reached from inside TISSOL. A student gets three checks before a 24-hour wait. Faculty also see an AI-detection percentage that students don’t see.
• University of Mumbai centres. Ask your centre’s designated authority which tool and which settings it uses. Ask in writing, because the regulations leave it to the centre.

If your report comes from Turnitin, our guide on reading a Turnitin report explains the colour bands and the source list.

Why do NMIMS and ICT scholars need to think about similarity before the thesis?

NMIMS. The School of Business Management’s operating procedures ask for a similarity report signed by you and your supervisor at three points. The first is with the research proposal, when the Thesis Advisory Committee recommends it to the RAC. The second is with the synopsis, and the third with the thesis. At the thesis stage the note is explicit. Similarity is expected to be not more than 10%. Above that, your supervisor must give an explanation, signed, on the report. Clause 11.4 of the NMIMS PhD guidelines says you use the software NMIMS provides and follow the UGC’s plagiarism regulations. Clause 11.5 adds your undertaking and your supervisor’s originality certificate. Early similarity often sits in the literature review of your proposal. Carry it into Chapter 2 unchanged and it shows up again at the thesis.

ICT. The 2015 rules put the research papers, patents and thesis under the institute’s plagiarism rules and clause 10 of its code of ethics. The thesis must carry a declaration of originality. ICT allows chapters to read as self-contained papers, so much of a thesis can match your own published articles. Cite each paper at the start of the chapter that grows from it. Then whoever reads the report can see the match is yours. Also check with your guide whether your department excludes those sources.

The same caution applies to AI-written text. If your centre’s declaration asks about it, read what we say on using AI tools during a PhD before you sign.

Working with us from Mumbai

We start on a video call with your latest report and the chapter or thesis it came from. You send both by email. We tell you which matches are excluded under your institution’s rules and which need citations or quotation marks. We also mark which ones need your own rewriting. The timing follows the Mumbai calendar you are on:

• University of Mumbai: the thesis goes in two to six months after the synopsis, and the centre’s check happens inside that window. We aim to finish before you hand the file to the designated authority, so it’s signed once.
• SNDT: your Head of Department can’t take the three copies until the library certificate exists. So we plan backwards from the day the Head sends your soft copy to the library.
• NMIMS: we can work on the proposal or synopsis report too, which saves repeating the work at the thesis.
• IIT Bombay: we finish before you request the library’s summary report for the forms file.

Every change is a tracked edit you approve, in your words. Wherever the checker allows it, we switch repository storage off for our reports. That way your text isn’t stored as a source that could later match your own submission. What we won’t do is described in our ethics policy.