The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) granted the Institute of Eminence (IoE) status to 6 universities on Monday. Three public institutes and three private received this status from a total of 114 applicants.
The public institutes include IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and IISc Bangalore while the private institutes to receive this status are BITS Pilani, Manipal University and Reliance Foundation proposed Jio Institute.
The applicants included 11 Central Universities, 27 State Universities, 27 institutes of national importance, including IITs and NITs. MHRD also received applications from 10 private universities and 4 greenfield universities.
No state and central universities made it to the list. Indian Institutes of Management (s) also did not receive the status.
Outrage broke out on social media sites as the MHRD received criticism for granting status to Jio Institute before it even exists. The Jio Institute began to trend on Twitter and people started google searching the institute’s location.
Students and faculties from various university stormed Twitter and Facebook with dissent. Under pressure from this, Prakash Javdekar, the Minister of Human Resource Development produced a clarificatory note. The MHRD statement clarified that the clause 6.1 of UGC (Institute of Eminence Deemed to be University) Regulation 2017 allows yet to be established universities to apply for the status with a proposal.
The greenfield universities are judged on 4 parameters. The Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) received 11 proposals from yet to established universities. Reliance Foundation proposed Jio Institute qualified all the parameters and therefore was conferred with the IoE status.
UGC defended the inclusion of Jio Institute in the IoE list by stating no rules have been broken. The six selected institutes will receive unprecedented administrative and academic autonomy along with Rs. 1000 Crore funding from the MHRD to achieve world-class status.
In response to some misinformation campaign in social media regarding “Institutes of Eminence”, please find herewith clarifications on commonly raised questions #InstituteofEminence pic.twitter.com/K6IB5ILpfb
— Ministry of HRD (@HRDMinistry) 9 July 2018
