The Ministry of Human Resource Development on Thursday announced Swacchta Rankings for higher education institutions, declaring cleanest campuses across the country. As per the rankings, private institutions have performed better than government institutions.
These rankings were shared to encourage on-campus sanitation activities.
Ministry sources, however, said that there was a lukewarm response from prominent higher education institutions. No prominent institution other than IIT Guwahati featured in the list.
This lukewarm response from prominent institutions comes after a similar lack of interest from top institutions to the digital literacy campaign VISAKA, which was launched by the ministry after demonetisation. The ministry had asked institutes to engage students as volunteers for spreading digital literacy in December 2016. Later, they honoured the top 20 institutes that performed. However, none of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), or other prominent institutes made it to the list.
For Swachhta rankings, institutes were listed in four separate categories — University, Colleges, Technical institutions, and Government institutions. Among universities, OP Jindal University, Sonepat, has bagged the first position and been declared the cleanest campus in the country. Most institutions on the list are from Tamil Nadu.
The fact that government institutions did not take the drive seriously was recognised by the HRD minister as well. While announcing the rankings, he said, "No government institution had made it to the top 50 of the university category, which is why we had to create a separate category for them," Prakash Javadekar, HRD Minister, said.
In the government category, GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar has topped the chart, with Madurai Kamaraj University in the second position, and IIT Guwahati in the fifth.
Among colleges, Kongu Arts and Science College, Erode, Tamil Nadu ranked first, and among technical institutions, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, has secured the first rank.
The HRD Ministry had decided to rank higher education institutions on cleanliness in June this year and asked institutions to apply for the Swachhta ranking before July 31. The ranking was done based on two components — in-campus hygiene, which carried 85 per cent weightage, and activities outside the campus.
A total of 3,500 institutions from across the country participated in the rankings.
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