The National Education Policy 2020 provides a framework for reorganising and revamping higher education in India. Among several of its recommendations, the decision to discontinue the MPhil programme is a signifi cant one. The article makes an attempt to understand the perspective behind the move to discontinue the MPhil programme. The MPhil programme is discontinued for the more research-oriented undergraduate and master’s degrees. In a way, the discontinuation of MPhil is the collateral damage caused by the new structure of degrees that the NEP has proposed.