Questioning the top engineering colleges list, IIT BHU Varanasi stated that the NIRF Rankings 2017 have been compiled based on incomplete data. The institute claimed that the data was gathered from third party sources such as Web of Sciences, Thomas Reuter, Scopus and Indian Citation Index.
IIT BHU Varanasi has been given 31st position in the list of top engineering colleges published by NIRF rankings 2017. Rajeev Sangal, Director of IIT BHU, said that the data used to compile the NIRF Rankings 2017 was collected from third party sources instead of collecting it directly from the colleges.
The director further added that the data represented by the framework was incomplete and did not match with the information provided by the third party sources. This has had a bad impact on the final outcome of the NIRF Rankings, the Director added.
Prof Sangal informed that according to the data of Scopus, IIT BHU has published close to 1500 research papers in 2013, 2014 and 2015, whereas, NIRF has mentioned only 2015.
As per Web of Science, the institute has a total of 1006 research publications, but NIRF has only mentioned 827. A total of 125 research publication have been recorded in Indian Citation Index, while NIRF has displayed only 34, Sangal added.
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The Director said that NIRF gathered patent-related data from the third party and neglected the data provided by the institute. As a result of this incomplete information, zero marks were awarded by the NIRF to IIT BHU for publication and grant of patents. The Director contradicted that few of the patents of the institute have been published and granted.
Prof Sangal further added that if these discrepancies are removed then the rank of IIT BHU will come down under top 20 engineering institutes in India. An email has also been sent the NIRF asking the framework to rectify these errors and re-evaluate the rank of the institute, Sangal added.
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In 2016, IIT BHU was ranked 14th but the rank of the institute fell beyond the top 30 institute in 2017. The ranking for top engineering colleges in India was released by the HRD Ministry on April 3, 2017. The rankings for top universities, management institute, pharmaceutical institute and overall educational institute were also released by the Ministry.