A former IIEST Shibpur student, who is based in California, US, has started an online sign campaign with the alumni, regarding the persistent slide of the institute in the national ranking announced last month.
The Global Alumni Association of Bengal Engineering and Science University — IIEST in its former avatar happened to be a university — last month launched an exercise on seeking feedback from the alumni following a dip in the rankings registered till last year.
A further slide this year has triggered the sign campaign from Wednesday, said Swapan Saha, who graduated in 1988 in electrical engineering.
IIEST has slipped to the 40th position in the engineering category this year from the 27th position, registered last year. “We, the alumni/ alumnae are deeply disappointed at the steady decline in NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) ranking in the last three years. At the time, you (IIEST director Parthasarathi Chakrabarti) became the director of this over 160-year-old engineering institution, it ranked 19th on the NIRF list and was poised to move up...So, this fall in ranking has been quite disturbing,” the online petition states.
Till late on Thursday, over 1,700 alumni have signed the petition. Saha said they would send a copy of the petition to the IIEST director once the list of the signatories has 2,000 names. “All of us expected that the new status will bring larger funding.
However, the performance of the institute, since being elevated to an INI (Institute of National Importance), has been more than disappointing,” said Swapan Saha. Repeated calls to IIEST director Chakrabarti went unanswered.