In a bid to check the rampant plagiarism now increasingly being seen in Doctoral research theses, Osmania University on Thursday put in place a system to ensure there is no copying.

The university has bought the Turnitin software at Rs 7.61 lakh per year, and has named Assistant Professor AS Chakravarthy as Coordinator, Anti-Plagiarism Software. As many as 250 faculty members, including Deans, Heads of Departments and Chairpersons of different Boards of Studies, will all be given access to the software, the statement put out by the University said.

“Research scholars will have to submit a soft copy to the concerned supervisor, who is expected to run the software and issue a system-generated report to be forwarded to the coordinator. If the similarity index is below 25%, the coordinator will issue clearance for submission. If the similarity index exceeds 25%, the scholar will be given the option to edit/rewrite portions of the thesis,” the press release says.

The applicant can only modify the piece before the final certification by the coordinator.

However, scholars have to pay Rs 500 before they can run their theses through the software.

“Given that around 1,000 theses are submitted annually in Osmania, this amount will go a considerable way towards meeting the operational costs of the Software,” the statement added.

The University will also be holding a training and awareness programmes for members of the faculty and research scholars on how to use the software and why plagiarism cannot be accepted.

The Turnitin software, well-known for being extremely rigorous in checking plagiarism, accepts 400 pages or files of 40 Mb at a time.

This announcement by Osmania University comes just days after Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said the Centre is taking strong steps to clamp down on the rising instances of plagiarism seen in doctoral research theses.