Of the total number of 4,500 engineering colleges in India, 3,415 are privately promoted. And among them, a large number have been awarded the status of universities because of their high NAAC ratings and good industry reputation

Engineering and technology institutions of higher education hold a special place in the imagination of post-independence India’s several generations. After prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru famously declared dams and factories as the new temples of India, and the Central and state governments began a massive infrastructure construction and public sector corporations promotion programme under Soviet-inspired central planning, there was a rush in the newly liberated middle class to sign up their children for engineering.

As a result a large number of engineering colleges including India’s famous IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) mushroomed across the country. But with the Central government-sponsored IITs and NITs (National Institutes of Technology) admitting a mere 2 percent of the 1.3 million IIT aspirants who write the annual IIT-JEE entrance examination, a multitude of privately promoted engineering colleges have sprung up countrywide, especially in south India.

Indeed of the total number of 4,500 engineering colleges in the country, 3,415 are privately promoted. And among them, a large number have been awarded the status of universities because of their high NAAC ratings and good industry reputation. Since 2015, EducationWorld has been rating and ranking India’s best private universities separately to enable the great majority of school-leavers who don’t make the cut to enter the IITs and NITs to choose the next-best option. We also rank government/public engineering colleges – excluding the heavily-subsidised IITs and NITs because they routinely top the league tables of all media publications and also because as stated above, they admit a very small percentage of school-leavers aspiring for engineering higher education qualifications.

For several years, the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala and Vellore Institute of Technology (Tamil Nadu) have been highly ranked in the annual EWIHER. This year after classification of private and public universities into separate league tables of multidisciplinary, liberal arts, engineering & technology universities, it’s unsurprising that these institutions are top-ranked in that order in the discrete league table of private engineering universities.

[userpro_private restrict_to_roles=administrator,customer]

With BITS-Pilani being awarded deemed university status way back in 1964, although its engineering school was ranked second in the league table of undergrad engineering institutions published last month (April), in the private engineering & technology universities league table, BITS-Pilani University is top ranked.

“This is because a university is greater than its engineering school. BITS-Pilani also hosts an excellent business school and a department of humanities and social sciences,” explains Premchand Palety, founding CEO of the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (Cfore, estb. 2000) which conducted the EW India Higher Education Rankings (EWIHER) 2022-23 survey.

“I am very pleased to learn that BITS-Pilani has been adjudged India’s premier private engineering and technology university. Your decision to rank private universities in separate categories is rational because it makes it easier for school-leaving and graduate students — the consumer — to select the higher education institution that suits them best. I also appreciate that while our engineering school isn’t top-ranked by EducationWorld, we have been ranked the #1 engineering and technology-focused university. The National Education Policy 2020 recommends that all higher education institutions should gradually transform into multidisciplinary universities. I believe that BITS-Pilani is well on its way to achieving that goal. I am especially pleased with the highest scores awarded to us under the parameters of research and development and competence of faculty, which are rightly given the highest weightage in your survey,” says Souvik Bhattacharyya, an alum of Jadavpur, Cincinnati and Texas A&M (USA) universities and former vice chancellor of Jadavpur University who was appointed vice chancellor of BITS-Pilani in 2016. Currently this indisputably world-class university has 17,000 students and 925 faculty on its five campuses in India and abroad.

Sub-division of the 2021-22 and previous years’ league tables which ranked universities under the broad heads of government and private has not substantially affected the rankings of the Top 5. However beyond the Top 5, rationalisation has enabled several private engineering universities to climb high in the 2022-23 league table. For instance, the SRM Institute of Science & Technology, Chennai has vaulted to #6 cf. 13 in 2021-22; BML Munjal, Gurugram to #7 (14); Shanmugam Arts, Science, Technology & Research (SASTRA) University, Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu) to # 8 (14); Hindustan Institute of Technology (Deemed University), Chennai to #9 (25) and NIIT University, Neemrana (Rajasthan) to #10 (22) jointly with SRM University, Sonipat.

Rationalisation of the EW league tables and rating and ranking private universities within their domains is welcomed by Prof. Rajesh Khanna, a chemical engineering graduate of IIT-Kanpur who has been on the faculty of the top-ranked IIT-Delhi for over two decades, and is currently president of NIIT University Neemrana (Rajasthan), promoted by the well-known ICT (information communication technology) transnational NIIT Ltd (annual revenue: Rs.1,038 crore in 2021). In the EWIHER 2022-23, NIIT University has vaulted into the Top 10 with high scores under the parameters of research, curriculum and pedagogy and internationalism.

“I am very pleased by our entry into the Top 10 league table. However given our parentage and immersive internship and sustained industry connect programmes, I am somewhat disappointed by the scores awarded to us under the parameters of curriculum and pedagogy and industry interface. Evidently your sample respondents are not aware that our industry internship programmes are often of six months duration and our visiting faculty comprises some of the top leaders of industry. We intend to raise our public profile to make these facts known to the public,” says Khanna.

Beyond the Top 10 several private engineering universities have made spectacular gains because of the rationalisation of previous years composite league table. PES University, Bengaluru has risen to #11 from #18 in 2021-22; Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida to # 13 (16); VIT Bhopal University to #14 (25); Lovely Professional University, Phagwara (Punjab) to #22 (52) and Sir Padampat Singhania University to #24 (28).

Moreover, it’s important to bear in mind that private engineering varsities ranked modestly in the national league table may well be heavyweights in their host states. For instance, the Jaypee University of Information Technology ranked #18 nationally is #1 in Uttar Pradesh (pop.215 million) and the University of Engineering & Management (UEM), Kolkata India #21 is top-ranked in West Bengal (pop.91 million).

Tragically the eastern state of Bihar (pop. 104 million) doesn’t host a private engineering university sufficiently reputed for inclusion in EWIHER 2022-23. It’s a telling commentary on the unease of doing education in Bihar, the price of which is being paid by the state’s short-changed youth.

SASTRA’s Top 10 ranking is testimony to our belief in continuous progress. However ranking is only a measure of current status-quo and is dynamic. The objective of any university should be to invest in continuous improvement — a conscious effort, not driven by ranking parameters. Our efforts will be to position SASTRA as a truly multi-disciplinary university offering teaching, research, consultancy and training to all stakeholders.

Dr. S. Vaidyasubramaniam, vice chancellor, SASTRA Deemed University, Thanjavur

Also Read

India’s best government autonomous colleges 2022-23