Bengal’s Jadavpur University (JU) is India’s best state university; Calcutta University (CU) in free fall

KOLKATA: Jadavpur University (JU) has topped the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025 list in the “state public universities” category, pushing last year’s topper Anna University to 2nd place, but Calcutta University (CU) has experienced a sharp drop to 15th spot this year from 4th in 2024.

Last year, JU was at 2nd place in this category.JU has also maintained its 9th position among “top 100 universities” across the country, but CU has dropped to 39th from last year’s 18th.In “overall” category, IIT Kharagpur is the highest-ranked institute from Bengal at 6th place — same as last year — followed by JU at 18th and CU at 47th; these are the only institutes from the state to make it to top 50 in this category. Last year JU had ranked 17th, CU 26th.

CM Mamata Banerjee, in a post on X, congratulated JU for being the “only state university in top 10”. JU pro-vice chancellor Amitava Datta said the university’s ranking, despite “several difficulties” was possible due to the contribution of teachers, students, research scholars and staffers. “We will have to put more emphasis on research, innovation and sustainability to perform better,” he said.CU interim vice chancellor, Santa Datta De, said, “We have quality teachers, but we are struggling with a large number of vacancies.

We are trying to streamline these issues, which I am sure will be reflected in the next rankings.”IIT Kharagpur director Suman Chakraborty described the NIRF recognition as a reflection of the institute’s commitment to excellence in knowledge, innovation and societal impact and underscored the need for continuous improvement.

In the “top 100 colleges” category, Rama Krishna Mission Vivekananda Centenary College has ranked 6th; last year, it was joint 3rd with St Stephen’s College.

St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, has ranked 8th, down two spots from last year. St Xavier’s College, Kolkata principal Father Dominic Savio said, “We have consistently ranked within top 10 over the years, which by itself is a remarkable achievement.”Other colleges from the state to feature in the “top 100 colleges” category are Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira (19), Ramakrishna Mission Residential College (24), Midnapore College (42) and Lady Brabourne College (47).Among “top 100 engineering institutions”, IIT Kharagpur has maintained its 5th rank but JU has slipped to 18th from 12th last year. NIT Durgapur (49) and IIEST Shibpur (54) are the other two to feature in this category.What came as a disappointment was the dip in IIM Calcutta’s rank from 5th last year to 7th this year among management institutes. Director Alok Kumar Rai said, “We will have to take immediae corrective measures to improve our position.”Among law institutes, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) is at 4th place this year too. “We have to improve our score in perception metric to bag a better rank,” said vice-chancellor Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti.Among “top 50 research institutes”, IIT Kharagpur finished 5th, JU 23rd, IISER Kolkata 46th and CU 48th. IIT Kharagpur also bagged the 3rd spot among top 40 institutes in architecture and planning and 4th among top 10 institutes in innovation.(with inputs from Poulami Roy Banerjee)