Page 62 - EW 1-156 May 2024

Cover Story EW India Private University Rankings 2024-25

INDIA'S PREMIER PRIVATE ENGINEERING

& TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITIES

Attaining the $30
trillion GDP dream
by 2047 necessitates
private engineering and
technology universities
skilling an army of
managers and workers in
STEM subjects

f the lofty Viksit Bharat (‘devel-
oped India’) with a $30 trillion
GDP dream of Prime Minister
INarendra Modi — who seems set
to serve a third consecutive term in
office after results of General Elec-
tion 2024 are announced on June
4 — is to be realised, India’s manu-
facturing sector which currently
contributes a mere 17 percent of Prof. Ramgopal Rao (centre): research powerhouse & start-ups incubator
GDP, has to at the very least double
its contribution. government under socialist ideology. pense, migrated overseas every year
Although most economists and Consequently public sector enter- and those who remained were stuck
pundits believe this requires heavy prises (PSEs), which were budgeted in technical jobs without the freedom
investment in infrastructure, plant to transform independent India to expand PSEs into large-scale glob-
and machinery, it also necessitates into a manufacturing powerhouse, ally competitive corporations. More-
skilling an army of managers and were dominated by bureaucrats and over given the small number of IITs,
workers in STEM (science, technol- clerks who quickly drove them into even to this day they admit a mere 2
ogy, engineering and mathemat- bankruptcy and/or heavy depen- percent of the 1.2 million engineer-
ics) subjects. In turn, this requires dence upon annual allocations from ing aspirants who write the annual
upgrading and developing excellent the Central and state government IIT-JEE (joint entrance examination
engineering colleges and universi- budgets. ) and produce a mere 10,000 gradu-
ties equipped with best faculty, latest Admittedly, India’s first prime ates per year.
technologies and laboratories and minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was With the vast majority of engi-
well-furbished libraries. enamoured with Soviet socialism neering and technology aspirants
During the past 75 years after and government controlled cen- obliged to sign up with private engi-
India wrested independence from trally planned economy, promoted neering colleges — 70 percent of all
foreign rule, the country’s omni- India’s famous IITs (Indian Insti- engineering and technology higher
scient central planners provided for tutes of Technology) in Kharagpur, education institutions are privately
substantial investment in steel, coal, Bombay and Delhi which have since promoted — and IITs routinely top-
fertiliser, cement, pharmaceutical multiplied into 23 institutions. But ping the league tables published by
and other core industries, but did not because of the slow growth of the the media and government, a decade
develop sufficient human resources economy (3.5 percent per year) for ago, your editors resolved to elimi-
to efficiently manage giant corpo- over four decades, 50 percent of IIT nate IITs from the annual Education-
rations which were promoted by graduates trained at great public ex- World India Higher Education Rank-

62 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2024