Mumbai varsity’s poor run at national-level continues
VJTI makes it to the list of Top-100 engineering institutes in India for first time
The third National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2018 list released by HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday was a mixed bag for Mumbai.
While University of Mumbai (MU) once again found itself languishing in the 151-200 rank slot, Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) managed to maintain its 3rd rank (overall) and 2nd rank (amongst engineering institutes) this year as well. In addition, Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Matunga, made it to the list of Top-100 engineering institutes in the country for the first time.
“This is good news. It is encouraging and rewarding to all staff and students of the institute,” said Devang Khakhar, director, IIT-B.
The top two spots (overall) were bagged by Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M), respectively.
“The ranking is an affirmation of the consistent hard work of our faculty, staff and students, and the zeal with which we are implementing and exceeding the targets of our Strategic Plan 2020,” said Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, IIT-M.
Other institutes from Mumbai that did well are Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), which bettered its performance and made bagged the 30th spot — 11 places up from last 41st rank.
Commenting on VJTI’s performance, institute director Dhiren Patel, said, “Our prime focus is to improve teaching and learning resources. Simultaneously, we started receiving funds for research. This too helped us better our rank. To improve it further, we now need to focus on outreach.”
This year, for the first time, medical institutes were also included. Also, not a single institute from Mumbai was in the Top-25 list.
Pune’s Savitribai Phule University (16th rank) is the only university from Maharashtra that made it to Top-20 (overall) list. Similarly, Dr D Y Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune, was the only institute in the state that got a spot (18th rank) in the list of Top-25 medical institutes. Amongst individual colleges, St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, slipped to 74th rank as compared to last year’s 40th rank.
