Headed by ex-CEC N. Gopalaswami, panel holds first meeting Tuesday; it has on board Harvard’s Prof Tarun Khanna, Houston Univ’s Renu Khator.
New Delhi: The high-level panel set up by the Modi government last week to pick 20 ‘Institutes of Eminence’ is likely to announce the much-awaited list by April-May 2018.
The empowered expert committee (EEC), as it is known, held its first meeting in Chennai Tuesday and approved all parameters for selection of the ‘Institutes of Eminence’.
The EEC will hold its next meeting in the first week of April to shortlist the eligible institutes, following which it will announce the final 20 institutes by April-end or early May, ThePrint has learnt.
It is being assisted by a 15-member special technical team which is closely vetting the applications of the 104 institutes in the fray.
Headed by former chief election commissioner N. Gopalaswami, the EEC has on its board Prof. Tarun Khanna, the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, Renu Khator who holds the dual title of chancellor of the University of Houston System and president of the University of Houston besides Dr Pritam Singh, former Director IIM Lucknow and MDI Gurgaon.
Both Khanna and Khator are learnt to have participated in the first EEC meeting via video-conferencing.
Conceived and formulated under the close scrutiny of the Prime Minister’s Office, this high-priority project aims to catapult Indian institutes to global recognition. The Centre has promised unprecedented academic and administrative autonomy to the chosen 20. Ten of these will be government-run and receive special funding.
The EEC will, in effect, be the final authority to select the 20 institutes from a list of 104 that have applied for the coveted status.
Of the 104 institutes in the fray, 71 are government funded, including IITs, IIMs and a number of NITs. Top private institutes are contending for the status.
The Modi government has also set up a 15-member special team with members from the University Grants Commission and external experts to analyse the 104 institutes in the fray for the ‘Institutes of Eminence’ category. This technical team will vet the applicant institutes on certain parameters and then share their assessment with the EEC.
The EEC will finally recommend names of the chosen institutes to the UGC. It will also monitor and review the selected 20 institutions of eminence to ensure quality, decide on appeals, liquidation of corpus fund if needed, verify compliance with financial requirements if required, assess deviations from goals and standards identified.
Since the notorious UGC inspection regime is being waived for these institutes, a disclosure-cum-review mechanism will be brought in for which the EEC may rope in foreign experts.