New Delhi, Aug 2 (IANS): The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Friday recommended that Institutes of Eminence (IoE) be granted to IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur and the Delhi University.

The University of Hyderabad and the Benaras Hindu University have also been recommended to be granted the IoE status.

The list of 20 IoEs includes IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi and the IISc that feature in top 200 in QS world rankings.

Apart from the public universities, the higher education regulator has also recommended the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry to grant the IoE tag to a number of private universities including Shiv Nadar University (Uttar Pradesh), O.P. Jindal University (Haryana), Jamia Hamdard (New Delhi), VIT Vellore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Bengaluru), Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (Bhubaneswar) and the Satya Bharti Foundation.

The universities that have been denied the tag include the Aligarh Muslim University, the Ashoka University, the Tezpur University, the KREA University, the Jadavpur University, the Azim Premji University, Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru, and Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar.

"Since the thrust of the scheme is to prepare institutions for the global rankings, no existing institution which has not figured in any of the global/national ranks shall be recommended for the IoE status. Only after exhausting the above criterion, if any slot remains vacant, consideration shall be given to 'yet to be established (Greenfield)' proposals," the ministry said.

The decision was taken at a council meeting of UGC on Friday.

Interestingly, the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) appointed by Government under the chairmanship of N, Gopalaswami had recommended 30 institutions for the tag, the UGC's list contains 20 universities as the regulator said that the tag could only be provided to 20 institutions as per the scheme.

The IoE project for creating world class universities was launched by the HRD Ministry in 2017. The selected institutes will enjoy complete academic and administrative autonomy.

The government will run ten of these institutions and they will receive special funding.

"In case of the private institutions proposed as Institutions of Eminence, there will be no financial support, but they will be entitled for more autonomy as a special category Deemed University," the ministry said.