Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, July 19: Ranking status of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST) Jammu by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, has nose dived nine ranks from the previous year’s position.
From position 15 in the previous year ranking by ICAR, the SKUAST-Jammu has slipped to 24th place because of its poor performance on different fronts, including academics and research.
As per the ranking list, based on the recommendations of the Committee and approved by the competent authority of ICAR, a number of newly established Agriculture Universities and ICAR Institutes have performed better than the two decades old SKUAST-Jammu and scored higher points.
Only solace to the SKUAST-Jammu is the poorer performance of SKUAST-Kashmir, which has been placed at 27th number in the ranking list, three positions lower than its Jammu counterpart. SKUAST-Kashmir had not participated in the previous ranking process.
ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal has once again topped and secured the first rank while ICAR-Indian Agriculture Research, New Delhi, has also managed to sustain its ranking status by remaining on number two position for the second consecutive year.
Guru Angad Dev Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly, has climbed up six positions from its last year ranking and is now on number three in the ranking status. These three top Institutes will be awarded for their achievement in the annual day function of the ICAR.
The ICAR ranking is based on several parameters, including student and faculty profile, placement of students, publications in high ranking journals and citations, patents, technologies commercialized, revenue generation, improvement of genetic traits in crops, etc.
ICAR has initiated this system for enhancing the standards of agriculture education in sync with emerging agricultural research, technologies and new farm practices as propagated by world class universities.
Last year a total of 57 Agriculture Universities from all over the country had participated in the ranking process while this number of participating institutes rose to 63 in the latest ranking list for the year 2017.
The previous year ranking was based on five-year progress of these institutes from 2012 to 2016-17 while the latest ranking is based on university performance in the year 2017 only.
For SKUAST-Jammu, the last year ranking was a contribution of two Vice-Chancellors while the latest ranking for the year 2017 is based on the university performance appraisal of 2017 administration.
Official sources told the Excelsior that ICAR ranking of SKUAST-Jammu nose dived due to poor performance of the university mainly on revenue generation front and rating of papers by National Academy of Agriculture Science (NAAS). Besides, there were some other parameters on which the SKUAST-Jammu performance was not satisfactory, sources added.
Taking a cue from the MHRD, this ranking system has been introduced to help the Agriculture universities across the country for self assessment on the parameters decided by ICAR, which is an autonomous body responsible for co-ordinating agricultural education and research in India.
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