The government plans to invite applications for Atal rankings in October, and announce the rankings by Decembe... Read More

(This story originally appeared in on Aug 29, 2018)

(This story was originally published in the Economic Times on 29/08/2018.)

The government plans to roll out a number of schemes named after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee even as BJP has already begun a massive commemoration exercise for the late leader, especially in states where it is in power.

All the ministers have been asked to work out sector-specific schemes and plans named after Vajpayee for implementation at the earliest, people familiar with the development told ET.

While grand commemorations are envisaged on the political side to remind the public about the achievements under the Vajpayee regime, government schemes named after him will aim to drive home the larger point about the BJP’s commitment to ‘development’-based politics, sources said.

The Vajpayee commemorative exercise will also serve as a major electoral outreach plank of BJP ahead of 2019.

Ministers have either already held meetings or have scheduled them with their top officials to decide on commemorative schemes that can be taken up.

The HRD ministry will play a critical role in the scheme of things and will roll out a scheme this week, sources said. The Prakash Javadekar-led ministry is set to announce Atal Rankings of Institutions on Innovative Achievements ( ARIIA ), which will rank higher education institutes on their capability to provide ‘innovative’ solutions to specific problems and to convert research into innovations for public good.

The ministry is considering an eponymous fellowship on international diplomacy named after the former prime minister, considering his contribution in the international arena, sources said.

More elaborate information on him is also expected to be included in NCERT textbooks, they said.

The government plans to invite applications for Atal rankings in October, and announce the rankings by December, sources said.

The rankings will be open for participation for both public and private institutes and will assess them on five parameters — revenue generated through entrepreneurship and innovation, facilitating access to advance centres, development of innovation ecosystems through teaching and learning, in-house innovative solutions developed for improving their own institutional governance, and idea generation for entrepreneurship.

These umbrella parameters will cover areas like effective energy and waste management techniques, patents filed by institutes, revenue generation through technology transfers, handholding of startups, and so on.

Institutes ranked among the top 10 in Atal ranking will be granted `1 crore each to further bolster its innovative research programmes. The implementability and scalability of research will be the key for this ranking. ARIIA will also be attuned to global parameters on innovation.

Several states have already announced chairs at educational institutes, commemorating Vajpayee.

