Thesis submission steps

Step 1: Check your papers against the rule

Start with papers first. Journals take their own time to reply and you cannot hurry them from your side.

For submission, the UGC 2022 regulations don’t have any publication condition. Most universities have one anyway. At Bangalore University you need proof of two articles where you are first author at the time of thesis submission. Anna University asks for one full-length paper in a journal from its CFR list, and that is before the synopsis itself. Osmania asks for two Scopus or Web of Science papers, written jointly with your supervisor. Bharathiar asks for two papers and also two conference presentations.

Look at the journal type also. In 2025 the UGC-CARE list was discontinued by UGC. Even now you will find it written in some university rules. If your rule mentions it, write to research office and ask how they are reading that line now.

Step 2: The pre-submission seminar

Before submitting, every PhD scholar has to present the completed work before the Research Advisory Committee. This comes from clause 11(2) of the UGC 2022 regulations. Faculty and research students may attend.

The name and the timing change with the university. In VTU it is called a pre-submission colloquium, and it must happen at least three months before the thesis goes in. Osmania calls it the Pre-Submission Seminar, and it has to be within the six months before you submit. At IISc you have six weeks after the colloquium to hand in the thesis. For slides and the usual questions, read our guide on the pre-submission presentation.

Step 3: The synopsis and the examiner panel

The synopsis is a short form of your thesis, and the formal process starts with it. Its length and the number of copies change a lot.

• University of Madras: the synopsis can be 5,000 words at most, and you present it before the RAC. You can give the thesis one month after that, and not later than six months.
• Bangalore University: five copies of the final synopsis go to the Registrar (Evaluation) through your supervisor.
• University of Kerala: here the synopsis is one page only, with ten printed copies. It should not carry your name or your supervisor’s name.
• Anna University: your complete first draft has to be ready by the time the synopsis meeting happens. After approval the PDF is uploaded first, and within 90 days of that you should send them the hard copy also.

Mostly the supervisor sends the examiner panel along with the synopsis. Bharathiar wants two sealed panels, each with four to six examiners, one panel from abroad and one from India. KTU wants minimum eight names, and not more than three can be from inside Kerala. Osmania wants twelve names in the panel. The scholar does not choose the examiners. Still you can help your guide by collecting the correct address and a few recent papers for every name.

Step 4: The similarity check

The bands come from the UGC 2018 plagiarism regulations. Similarity up to 10% has no penalty, and above 10% there are consequences. Your university can fix its own limit and its own software. It may not match what your seniors used.

See how much the rules vary in our five cities.

• Bharathiar University checks only the chapters, using DrillBit, and the limit is 10%. Whatever certificate they give you is valid for 15 days only. We tell our scholars to collect every other document first and only then apply for the check.
• JNTUH asks you to bring a Word file personally to its R&D office, after the colloquium. Total match can go up to 24%, but a single source cannot be more than 3%.
• In VTU you first upload the full thesis online and send the hard copy. They start the check only after that hard copy reaches the university.
• In Bangalore University, the University Library certifies the plagiarism report, and that report is bound inside the thesis.

DrillBit reached most universities through INFLIBNET’s ShodhShuddhi licence. INFLIBNET put out a notice on 31 March 2026 giving six more months. We looked again in October 2026 and could not find any newer extension notice. Before you plan with it, ask your library whether their ShodhShuddhi account is still working.

Run your own check a few weeks before the official one. If your score comes high, our similarity check and revision help goes through the report along with you. We look at quotations and citations, and at passages that you then rewrite in your own words.

Step 5: Print, bind and hand in

Each university fixes how many copies you give and what binding they should have. The office will count them.

Bangalore University wants four thesis copies, given within six months of permission. The University of Madras takes four hard copies and one soft copy. Bharathiar takes five copies within six months of the synopsis. For binding they ask for a thin flexible cover and hard binding is not accepted there. For their online submission, the file must be below 10 MB and the thesis fee is ₹18,000. At Osmania you give four soft-bound copies, plus one CD with the soft copy.

With online portals there is less chance to correct a mistake than at a counter. As per the VTU checklist, make your PDF using the “Print to PDF” option of Microsoft. Online converters should not be used for this. Once submitted, there is no way to open the upload again and change it. Your USN, name and title must be exact. IISc does every step through its ScholarOne portal.

The language rules may take one or two weeks extra. Anna University asks for two abstracts, one in English and one in Tamil, and each is around 400 words. Madras asks for a longer Tamil abstract, up to ten pages, and the Tamil Virtual Academy checks it. Start the translation early itself. Our thesis formatting service can set the thesis as per your university layout. Once go through our formatting checklist before you give it for printing.

Step 6: External evaluation

Now you wait. As per the UGC 2022 regulations, your supervisor reads the thesis, along with two or more examiners from outside your university. Where possible, one is from abroad. The viva is held only when both examiners recommend the thesis. If one rejects it, an alternate examiner gets the thesis. The full process, with the viva also, is supposed to be over within six months.

Some universities add their own rules. In KTU, three examiners send reports within two months, and if two out of three recommend, you go to the viva. In IIT Madras the count of examiners is decided by your track. In Track-1, where 70% or more of the thesis is already published or accepted, two examiners are enough.

Many scholars just wait in these months, but you can use the time better. Write down the weak points you already know in your thesis, because examiners many times catch the same ones.

Step 7: The open viva

The viva board has your supervisor and one or more of the outside examiners. The UGC 2022 regulations keep the viva open to the RAC, faculty members and students, and it can also be conducted online. In the University of Madras, the viva notice is put up on the notice boards of the department, the institution and the library.

Read the examiners’ reports fully before the viva date and prepare an answer for every comment. Our viva preparation help has mock vivas over video, and we build them from your own reports.

Step 8: Corrections, Shodhganga and the certificate

After the viva, do the corrections the board asked for and submit the final copies. IISc wants the corrected thesis within 30 days, with a list of what you changed. CHRIST asks for four hard-bound copies within one week of the viva.

After that, your university deposits a soft copy with INFLIBNET for Shodhganga. Clause 17 of the UGC 2022 regulations gives this duty to the university, and you don’t have to upload it yourself. As per clause 15 you get the provisional certificate first. The formal award of the degree comes only after that.

If you want these steps as a tick list, see our PhD checklists. The PhD timeline planner is there to count how many days come between one step and the next.