Top monitoring body for institutes of eminence inactive since February

A special monitoring panel set up to cut red tape and bring in a new liberal regulatory regime for the Institutes of Eminence, has been inactive for the last six months.

The Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) is key to the entire concept of about 20 Institutes of Eminence (IoEs).

Its inactive status comes at a time when government approvals to the Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with as many as four private IoEs have been pending for months, even after completion of all due process.

The reason why the EEC has been rendered inactive is that the four-member panel’s three-year term ended in February this year.

However, their appointments have either not been renewed and new appointees inducted so far, ET has learnt.


EEC chairman N Gopalaswami confirmed to ET that the term of all its members, including him, had ended several months back. On February 20, 2018, after a rigorous search process steered by the Cabinet Secretary, the Centre set up the EEC under the former chief election commissioner to recommend 20 institutes for the status of eminence.

Professor Tarun Khanna of the Harvard Business School, Renu Khator of the University of Houston and Dr Pritam Singh, former director of IIM-Lucknow, were its other members.

With Singh’s demise, a vacancy was caused in the panel in June 2020, following which Gopalaswami wrote to the government requesting a new appointee in in his place.
He is also learnt to have reminded the government of the approaching end of the three-year term and the need to either renew their appointments or make fresh ones to the panel. However, this has not happened till now.

There are no clear reasons for the delay, but the Covid-19 pandemic, the ill health of previous education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and the recent change of guard at the education ministry, bringing in Dharmendra Pradhan in his place, have impacted its pace of work in various ways.

ET has learnt that MoUs for four of the nine private institutes chosen for the status – Reliance Industries-backed Jio Institute; Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Odisha; Vellore Institute of Technology and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham -- are pending final approval by the government despite the previous EEC having sent in all the required documentation, inspection reports and approvals before its term ended.
Jio Institute cannot start operations till it gets the IoE status as it is a greenfield institute, but the other three are already operational and will get a big boost when eminence status is conferred on them, sources in the know said.

Jio Institute was believed to be planning to start its first academic session from July this year, but the plans have been held up in the absence of the MoU.An inactive EEC has other implications as well for the IoE setup, as it is the primary monitoring and regulatory body for these institutes.