UGC denies 'eminence' tag to Jadavpur University over fund 'sharing' issue
New Delhi: In a major setback to Jadavpur University, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has denied the "Institute of Eminence (IoE)" status to West Bengal's university citing the reason that the IoE tag would only be given if the state government agrees to allocate up to 50 per cent fund of their share for the development of the institute.
Another state university that has been denied IoE tag is Anna University, Chennai under the Tamil Nandu government.
Other universities that have been denied the prestigious IoE tag include Azim Premji University, Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, KREA University, which has former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan as governing council advisor and Mahindra group's chairman Mahindra Group as its governing council member.
According to the official communiqué, besides Jio Institute, Bharti of Satya Bharti Foundation has been selected by the UGC for the grant of eminence tag under the Greenfield category.
Under the scheme, the government will develop 20 institutes comprising of 10 government institutions and 10 private varsities of the world-class level. The Centre will allocate Rs 1,000 crore per institute selected under public institutions category over a period of five years for the overall development of the institute, while institutes selected under private institutions category will not get any fund from the government.
The government institutes that have been selected for eminence tag include IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IISC Bangalore, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, Delhi University, University of Hyderabad, BHU, Varanasi.
The private universities that the UGC has asked the HRD ministry to grant IoE tag include the OP Jindal University in Haryana, Shiv Nadar University in Uttar Pradesh, Jamia Hamdard in New Delhi, VIT Vellore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Bengaluru, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology in Bhubaneswar and Bharti of Satya Bharti Foundation.
Other private institutes that were selected for the eminence tag in the first round of scrutiny include BITS Pilani, Rajasthan, Manipal Academy of Higher Education and Jio Institute.
The decisions over the selection of all 20 institutes were taken by the UGC at a meeting on Friday.
In response to queries over denial of the IoE tag to some well-known private universities, a senior official said, "The status has been granted to only those institutes that have been ranked at different levels and those that have not been ranked; they have been kept out as they don't meet the eligibility criteria."
The colleges had figured in the list of 15 public and 15 private institutes that the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC), headed by former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami, had recommended for the IoE tag.
"In case of the private institutions proposed as IoE, there will be no financial support, but they will be entitled to more autonomy as a special category deemed university," an official release said.
"The Greenfield institutions would get 3 year period to establish and operationalise the institution, and thereafter, EEC will consider giving IoE status to such institutions," the release further added.
The government's efforts to create world-class universities with the IoE tag had led to the controversy last July when the status was awarded to Reliance Foundation's Jio Institute, which is yet to be built.
