The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, has been chosen as an “Institute of Eminence”. The institute that moved up 17 places in the world university rankings published last month was among six institutions in the country that were awarded the status by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD). “Over the last two decades, IIT-Bombay has improved its national and global ranks. The status of an Institute of Eminence will catapult the growth,” said Director Devang Khakhar adding that the institute has not received any official intimation from the ministry yet. As an “Institute of Eminence”, IIT-B will receive government grant of Rs 1,000 crore over five years. “We have given the ministry a proposal regarding what we plan to do in future. We have set clear tasks for ourselves in a 300-page proposal. We want to further improve our performance in research. We have set out goals for faculty recruitment, as well as infrastructure development,” Khakhar added. On Monday, Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar announced on Twitter that six institutes - three public and three private - had been selected as “Institute of Eminence”. Among the public institutes are Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IIT-Bombay and Delhi. BITS Pilani, Manipal University and Jio Institute are the private institutes that have been selected. “The improvement in our ranks means that we are able to do everything better, be it teaching or research. What lies at the core of the development is that we have been successful in recruiting very good faculty,” said Khakhar. Last year, IIT-Bombay made its debut in the list of the Top 200 universities in the world. It moved from 179th rank last year to 162nd this year. In the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) by the MHRD this year, IIT-B featured in the Top Five list under three categories. In the overall category, the institute secured third position and it ranked second in the engineering colleges category. In the management colleges category, IIT-B is the fifth best in the country, according to the NIRF.
