Edition 50

Vice Chancellor’s
Interview
DTU Times interviewed Prof. Yogesh Singh,
Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, DTU on various
aspects related to infrastructure, curriculum,
and university rankings.
How has DTU evolved from the time you took over as
the Vice Chancellor?
Everyone has widely differing opinions, but many
things have improved since I joined DTU in 2015.
Right now we have over 300 regular teachers, out of
whom 90 are full-time professors, and this has never
happened before. We have about 400 regular Ph.D.
students and about 300 part-time Ph.D. students; in
all we have almost 700 Ph.D. students enrolled at the
moment.
For the first time, we have also participated in the
Times Higher Education ranking. Earlier, we were
ineligible to participate in it as we could not meet
their eligibility criteria of having at least 500 good
publications in the best journals and not less than
150 publications in a single year. We achieved that
first and then participated. In the University category,
we were placed in the 1000+ category and in the
Engineering category, we were placed in the 801+
category. Our Computer Engineering department
has been placed in the 601+ category, which is
commendable. But we are not satisfied with these
numbers and are working very hard to improve this in
the coming years. The weightage given to the various
parameters by the Times ranking is very different
from others. According to their parameters, more
than 60% weightage is for research and innovation
We have also participated in the NIRF ranking
where DTU stood at 34 th position in the Engineering
category. In these rankings, IIT Madras was declared
as the best university but in terms of placement, DTU
had a higher score than IIT Madras. DTU is doing
extremely well in placements. The weightage given
to placements in the NIRF is only in the order of 5%,
but in magazine rankings, this weightage is quite
significant.
This year the average package will be around 11
lakhs. Our strengths are not properly addressed in
rankings. That is why we are 34th. But now we are
also focusing on the new parameters, and I can
assure that in another 3-5 years, our rank will at least
be within the top 10. In the magazine rankings, many
institutes don’t participate, but here all institutions
must participate. I look at all the parameters of NIRF
ranking as a challenge and think of how we can
improve. Every policy and initiative should help us
get better marks and this is our focus now.