IIT Kharagpur Allegedly Fakes Numbers To Rank Higher, Receives Caution Letter From HRD Ministry 

National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) has issued a letter of warning to the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) after the Ministry of Human Resource Development received complaints about the Institute for fudging facts to improve the institute’s ranking, Indian Express has reported.

This year, IIT-Kharagpur ranked the fourth best engineering institute in the country. It also ranked first in architecture category, seventh in management and fourth among law schools.

In June, some students from the institute accused the administration of submitting falsified facts to the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), the agency which publishes rankings every year. The students of IIT Kharagpur, themselves, sent a letter to HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar regarding the same.

The letter stated that the authorities lied to score points in 'initiatives for students with disabilities' parameter, that the institute has either lifts or ramps and specially designed toilets for persons with disabilities in all its buildings. Out of the 48 departments and buildings on campus, only 11 had these facilities.

NIRF rules state that an institution can be debarred from participating in future rankings for up to two years if it resorts to any “unethical practices” and an institution can also be removed from the ranking list.