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“It is our commitment to empower Higher Educational Institutions to help them become world-class teaching and research institutions. An enabling regulatory architecture will be provided to ten public and ten private institutions to emerge as world-class Teaching and Research Institutions. This will enhance affordable access to high quality education for ordinary Indians. A detailed scheme will be formulated.”
This announcement was made by then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during the 2016-17 Union Budget speech.
The Institution of Eminence (IoE) Scheme, also called the World-Class Institutions Scheme, was launched in 2017 with two main goals:
To help Indian universities gain global recognition, aiming to rank among the top-500 universities in the world within ten years, and eventually reach the top 100.
To provide financial support of ₹1,000 crore each to ten selected public universities over a five-year period to help them achieve this target.
12 IoEs in Eight Years: Where Are the Rest?
As of 31 December 2024, only eight public and four private universities have been notified under the Institution of Eminence (IoE) scheme, despite the original plan to develop 20 institutions as world-class.
The Empowered Expert Committee (EEC), chaired by N Gopalaswami, was established by the government to select universities, which would then be developed into world-class institutions. In its 542nd meeting held on 2 August 2019, the University Grants Commission (UGC) reviewed the reports from the EEC, which included recommendations for 15 public and 15 private institutions to be granted the IoE status. Finally, 20 universities would be selected as IOEs.
However, after eight years, only 12 universities have been officially notified under the IoE scheme.
In its report presented to the Rajya Sabha on 26 March, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Children, Women, Youth and Sports observed:
“Nearly eight years after the program was launched, the Department has been able to notify only twelve of the twenty institutes that it has been mandated to notify as Institutions of Eminence. The Committee recommends that the process of notifying the remaining universities as IoEs should be expedited.”
JNU, Jadavpur University Not in List?
Secondly, as per the government's reply in the Lok Sabha, 44 centrally funded universities, including the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, had applied for the Institution of Eminence (IoE) status.
The government said that selections were based on rankings of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) and QS World University Rankings. Despite being ranked 6th in the NIRF 2018, JNU was not selected, and no official reasons are known for its exclusion.
A parliamentary standing committee noted in its report that -
“The Committee notes that several key institutions - such as Jawaharlal Nehru University which is widely regarded as among the world’s foremost centres for research in Social Sciences, Humanities, and Development Studies – have been excluded from the IoE’s ambit. The Committee recommends that further expansion of the Institutes of Eminence Scheme should be considered to incorporate these institutions.”
Jadavpur University was first included in the UGC’s list of recommended universities but was later removed. When asked why, the government told Parliament on 12 March that the EEC had reviewed the university’s revised proposal and noticed a big drop in the proposed budget—from ₹3,299 crore to ₹606 crore.
The committee felt that such a steep cut would make it hard for the university to achieve the goals set for Institutions of Eminence (IoE).
However, people at Jadavpur University have a different view. In 2019, then Vice-Chancellor Das told The Telegraph that he was unaware of any ₹3,000 crore budget mentioned in the Centre’s letter.
Underfunded Excellence: The Budget Gap in IoE Spending
The scheme has a budget outlay of Rs 10,000 crore to be released to ten public institutions identified under the scheme over a period of five years.
In the eight years, only Rs 6,199 crore have been sanctioned for eight public IoEs. In the last three years, the actual spending is much lower than the budget provisions made for the IoE.
Here’s the table with the percentage shortfall showing how much the actual utilization was less than the budget estimate:
Eight Years On, Only Six Indian IoEs Make it to Global Top 500
The primary goal of the scheme was to elevate Indian universities into the top 500 in global rankings. However, eight years since its launch, only six of the selected Institutions of Eminence (IoEs) have made it into the top 500.
Notably, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and O.P. Jindal Global University remain in the 1001–1200 band, while the University of Hyderabad and Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani fall within the 801–850 range.
Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) is ranked in the 901–950 bracket. Despite a commendable performance in India’s NIRF rankings, Shiv Nadar University has not secured a place in the QS World University Rankings 2025.
This outcome raises questions about the effectiveness of the scheme in achieving its global ambitions.
Drop in IIT Placements is a Growing Concern
While institutes like IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi have made it to the top 500 in the QS rankings, their placement rates are a growing concern. The following data shows the placement strike rate, which reflects the number of students who participated in placements and the number who secured jobs (excluding those who did not participate).
In 2017, during his speech at the centenary celebrations of Patna University, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that:
“Indian universities have not found any place among the world's top 500. Isn't it ironic that the country where its universities like Nalanda, Vikramshila, Taxila, Vallabhi had attracted the entire world about 1,300 or 1,500 years back did not find any place among the top 500 universities of the world? Don't you think that we should erase this slur and change the situation?”
He then explained the details of the Institute of Eminence scheme. Seven years later, the dream of world-class universities in India is still far off.
World-class universities aren’t just those ranked in QS rankings, but those with strong research facilities and academic freedom, like Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which recently took a bold stand against the US President.
True world-class universities are those that produced figures like Aryabhata, Chanakya, Panini, and Vallabha Acharya. We still have a long way to go to restore the legacy of these ancient institutions.