Government asks UGC if 2 private institutes which got IoE tag were eligible

The Centre has demanded a clarification from the University Grants Commission (UGC) on whether the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in Tamil Nadu and Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in Odisha are eligible for the ‘Institution of Eminence’ (IoE) status. According to the UGC’s regulations on the IoE initiative, the funding organisation is a “charitable or a not-for-profit society or a public trust or a company founded under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013” applying to promote a prevailing private institution or a new one to an IoE.

According to the eligibility criterion, the cumulative net worth of the associates of the funding organisation should be Rs 3,000 crore for existing institutions and Rs 5,000 crore for new ones. However, the applications filed by VIT and KIIT reflect that both have offered the market value of current assets, such as land and building, as the net value of the funding organisation. The above eligibility section was the bone of contention among many private higher education institutions as it had left them out of the application process.

The IoE scheme is a tamed project of the Prime Minister’s Office introduced under the NDA-II government. It is aimed at building an enabling architecture for 10 public and 10 private institutes to grow as world-class institutions. The IoEs are projected to have greater sovereignty, including determining the fee, and course duration and structure. Their academic alliance with foreign institutions will also be relieved from approvals. The 10 government institutions, in addition to autonomy, will get Rs 1,000 crore each from the HRD Ministry.

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