india

Updated: Sep 04, 2019 23:41 IST

New Delhi

The human resource development (HRD) ministry on Wednesday set the ball rolling for providing the coveted Institute of Eminence (IoE) tag to 12 institutions including Delhi University, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras and Benaras Hindu University (BHU).



Jadavpur University in West Bengal and Anna University in Tamil Nadu will have to wait for the label because the state governments are yet to give the go-ahead.

According to a senior official, of the 14 new institutions that were selected by the University Grants Commission (UGC) for the IoE status on the recommendations of an expert panel, the process had been initiated for 12.

Letters of Intent (LoIs) have been sent to private institutions; public institutions have been asked to sign memorandums of understanding (MoUs) so that the status can be conferred on them, the official cited above said on condition of anonymity.

A university that Bharti Foundation plans to build in Delhi, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Benglauru), Vellore Institute of Technology (Vellore), Jamia Hamdard (New Delhi), Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (Bhubaneswar), O P Jindal University (Sonepat) and Shiv Nadar University (Greater Noida) in the private category; and BHU, IIT Madras, IIT-Kharagpur, Delhi University and the University of Hyderabad in the public category are the institutions for which process has been initiated, the official said.

The selected institutions will be set targets like maintaining a certain student-teacher ratio or those related to infrastructure for them to achieve the coveted IoE tag, which only the best institutions in India would be eligible to receive, the official added.

Earlier, Reliance Foundation’s proposed Jio Institute, BITS Pilani, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (in the private category), and the Indian Institute of Science, IIT Delhi, and IIT Bombay were issued similar letters.

The Institute of Eminence programme is an ambitious plan by the Narendra Modi government, which aims to catapult Indian educational institutions up the global rankings.

Anna University and Jadavpur University.have also been recommended by the UGC but with a caveat -- they can be considered for the IoE status only after the respective state governments release a communication agreeing to share up to 50% of the maximum of Rs 1,000 crore each that they will receive over five years.

“The letters from state governments of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are awaited in the case of Jadavpur and Anna Universities,” a senior HRD ministry official said.

In the case of Shiv Nadar and O P Jindal Universities, letters have been written to state governments to take steps to ensure that they are converted into deemed varsities.