india

Updated: Dec 07, 2018 22:19 IST

An expert committee has recommended 24 more academic institutions — in addition to the six earlier —for the coveted ‘Institute of Excellence’ tag.

Shiv Nadar University in Greater Noida, Jamia Hamdard in New Delhi, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Bangalore, VIT Vellore, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar, KREA University in Chennai and Bangalore’s Azim Premji University are the seven private institutions while IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, Delhi University, Jadavpur University, Anna University in Chennai, BHU Varanasi and the Tezpur University are the government ones.

The institutions were chosen by a panel headed by former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami.

The government would allow institutions with the Eminence tag a greater autonomy without having to come under the University Grants Commission (UGC), and let them admit foreign students and recruit faculty from abroad, and have a flexible course and fee structure in order to enable them to rank them in the top institutions of the world.

In the first list, IISc Bangalore, IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi from the government sector were chosen while the private ones were BITS Pilani, Manipal Academy of Higher Education and Jio Institute.

A controversy had arisen over the choice of Jio institute, which was yet to be set up. However, the HRD ministry later clarified that the tag was given under the Greenfield category.

In the list released on Friday, the committee of experts suggested an additional five names in both the categories.

In the public sector category, it chose Aligarh Muslim University, Savitri Bai Phule Pune University, Punjab University Chandigarh, Andhra University and the University of Hyderabad as the additional five names.

In the private sector, the panel suggested Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Indian Institute of Public Health, Ashoka University, Sonepat, and O P Jindal University.

A proposed institution — Bharti by the Satya Bharti Foundation — is another institution which finds itself in the additional names.

The empowered expert committee (EEC) has identified five extra institutions in each category, which as per policy were to be kept in the reserve list.

The EEC has, however, recommended that all the 15 institutions in each category be approved for Institute of Eminence status.