No Institution of Eminence status for Ashoka, Krea, Aligarh Muslim varsities

NEW DELHI: No more than 20 institutions will be accorded the Institution of Eminence status, the government announced on Friday as it brought in top IITs, central universities and private institutions into the elite group while dropping from the shortlist Ashoka University, Krea University and Aligarh Muslim University, as per a new ranking-based evaluation criteria devised by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, University of Delhi, University of Hyderabad and Banaras Hindu University will be included from among public institutions, joining IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay and IISc Bangalore which were conferred the status in July 2018. In the private category, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, VIT Vellore, Jamia Hamdard, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, OP Jindal University and Shiv Nadar University will join Jio Institute, BITS Pilani and Manipal Academy of Higher Learning. Bharti group’s Bharti Foundation is the only greenfield institution to get the nod after Jio Institute, but with the rider that it will be given a letter of intent provided there is a vacant slot.

The Centre has trimmed the list to 20 from 30 institutions – as ET first reported on July 29 that it might – arguing that this was in keeping with the original budgetary announcement and financial provisions made in 2016. ET had reported that the UGC had been tasked with drawing up parameters to rank the 15 institutions – something the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) had not done – to help trim the list. The UGC has also kept on the hold the eminence status recommended by EEC for two state universities, Jadavpur University and Anna University, saying they will be considered only after the respective state governments issue an official communication allocating their share of the funds (up to 50 per cent).

EEC chairman N Gopalaswami told ET that the government was well within its rights to decide on the issue. “The government had originally announced 20 of them. We had recommended 30 of them to allow for standby options. While I am yet to look at the details of the government’s decision, they are well within their rights to do so in keeping with their original plan,” he said. As per a government statement, the UGC in its 542nd meeting held on Friday, considered the EEC reports recommending a total of 30 institutes. “Since the scheme has only provided for (10) public and (10) private Institutions, the UGC has examined the list of (15) public and (15) private institutions using transparent and verifiable criteria,” said a government statement.

It said the principles used for identifying the institutions from the list of 30 recommended by the EEC were ranking performance of the institute. “Since the thrust of the scheme is to prepare institutions for the global rankings, no existing institution which has NOT figured in any of the global/national ranks shall be recommended for the IoE status. Only after exhausting the above criterion, if any slot remains vacant, consideration shall be given to ‘yet to be established (greenfield)’ proposals,” said the government. The list of 30 institutions was assessed as per the QS-2020 World Rankings, and wherever there was a tie, the EEC used theQS-2019 India Rankings as a tie-breaker.

Trimming the list
The move to trim the list comes amid speculation that the original EEC recommendation of 30 might have been held back due to some disquiet in the top echelons of the government over the choice of institutions picked as many of them were seen as being overtly critical of the government.