Authorities at National Institute of Technology (NIT) here have constituted a committee to look into the “shortcomings” after the institute fell to below 200th position in the recently announced National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking.
An official said the committee has been asked to ascertain the reasons for the poor performance of the Institute and submit the report within 15 days for further discussion of the matter with the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Registrar NIT, Dr Kaisar Bukhari confirmed the constitution of a four-member committee headed by Prof Aijaz Ahmad of Department of electrical engineering as its Chairman.
“The committee will look into all aspects why the institute did not rank amongst the first hundred institutes. It will obtain feedback from all members of the committee constituted earlier for the submission of the relevant data for NIRF ranking,” reads an order issued by Director NIT.
The Registrar said the panel will examine the lapses and will accordingly fix the responsibility.
On Monday, the Faculty Association of NIT Srinagar (FANITS) had convened a meeting wherein they had termed the poor ranking of the NIT as “debacle for the institute.”
“For participation in NIRF ranking, a committee is constituted which submits the documents to MHRD. The individual faculty members have to give their individual details to the committee about their research, publications and public outreach. But the faculty members didn’t fill the forms carefully which resulted in poor ranking,” the Registrar said.
The Registrar contested the claims of faculty Association that PhD admissions were closed in the institute.
He said around around 433 PhD students are enrolled in the NIT out of which 333 get institute fellowships. “In the autumn session of 2019, we have admitted 148 candidates out of which 122 get institute fellowships and 26 are either sponsored, JRF, TEQIP, or through QIP,” the Registrar NIT said.