Chennai: As many as 24 universities from Tamil Nadu featured in the top 100 universities list released on Monday.
The Anna University, as the state’s premier technical university, bagged the 6th rank among the universities in the country. It also got the 8th rank in engineering and 13th in the overall category. Its Registrar S.Ganesan attributed the ranking to the thriving research environment in the university.
“In the past three years, it is the only technical university producing more research articles in the reputed research journals,” he said, while pointing out that the university got selected out of 100 universities which applied for the University with Potential for Excellence (UPE) scheme for the year 2015-16.
“We have received Rs 23 crore to carry out biomedical engineering research and to develop portable healthcare devices.
The state government also awarded many centres of excellence in the university to conduct research and other activities,” he added. “Each department and faculty will identify the thrust areas to strengthen the R and D activities and to focus on research relevant to the needs of society.”
The VIT scored the top rank among the private engineering institutions in the country for the second consecutive year. “This is the second consecutive year that we are at the number-one position among the private engineering institutions”, said VIT vice-president G. V. Selvam. “This has become possible because of the high quality of education that we ensure for our students through constant updating of the curriculum by interacting with the industry”, he said.
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University ranked 17th and Bharathiar University university ranked 28th in the rankings.
The University of Madras surprisingly secured 41st rank in the rankings. Professors in the university have raised the issue of funds diversion meant for nanotechnology research in the university.
Both Anna University and the University of Madras have significantly done better without Vice-Chancellors in the past one year.
Of private universities, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham secured 9th rank and Vellore Institute of Technology secured 14th rank.
“It is a great feeling to reach the top of the ranking for private universities in India in just one year and right behind some of the prestigious public-funded universities in the country,” said P. Venkat Rangan, Vice Chancellor, Amrita University. Bharath Institute of Higher Education and Research and SASTRA ranked 21 and 32 respectively. Sri Ramachandra University ranked 39th among the universities.
