The 100-year-old Banaras Hindu University and globally-ranked IIT Madras are among the five universities that have been bestowed with the Institutions of Eminence (IoE) title by the government on Thursday.

The Human Resource Development ministry (HRD) on the advice of University Grants Commission (UGC) and expert committee issued the title to IIT Madras, Banaras Hindu University, IIT Kharagpur, University of Delhi and University of Hyderabad, ANI reports

The Institutions of Eminence scheme was launched in 2016 in order to empower the higher educational institutions and to put them on the world education map. The UGC shortlists institutes and sends it to the HRD ministry, which takes the final call. Ten public and ten private institutions are picked every year as world-class teaching and research institutions.

Since the purpose of the designation of such an institute is to prepare them for global rankings, institutions that have not figured in any of the global and national ranks are not considered for IoE status.

“Only after exhausting the above criterion, if any slot remains vacant, consideration shall be given to ‘yet to be established (greenfield)’ proposals,” UGC website says,

The institutions that make the cut are given greater autonomy and freedom to decide fees, course durations and administration norms. Public institutions also receive a government grant of ₹1,000 crore, while the private institutions do not get any funding under the scheme.

Letters of intent were issued to Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Vellore Institute of Tech (TN), Jamia Hamdard (Delhi), Kalinga Institute Of Industrial Tech (Odisha) & Bharti Institute Satya Bharti Foundation (Mohali) for sending their preparedness for being declared IoE.

Other two state universities, Jadavpur University (West Bengal) and Anna University (Tamil Nadu), were also selected by the empowered committee and the state governments have been asked to indicate their commitment towards their contribution under the Institutions of IoE scheme, ANI reports.

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