Bangalore, Feb. 27: On budget eve, what’s uppermost in the mind of scientists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is last year’s unkept promise.

In the last budget, Union finance minister P. Chidambaram had announced a grant of Rs 100 crore to the institute to make it a world-class institution comparable to Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Stanford. But the grant has remained on paper.

“We were really surprised and welcomed it (the announcement). But the finance minister has not kept his promise,’’ a scientist at the institute said.

“Earlier, on January 6, 2005, the Prime Minister had spoken about setting up a knowledge commission to see how quality human capital could be built. The Prime Minister had said his government believed that investments in institutions of higher education and research and development were as important as investments in physical capital and physical infrastructure.

“He had said that what we need are world-class universities and we must make a beginning with one institution. We must have a university that will be ranked alongside Oxford and Cambridge or Harvard and Stanford.”

The IISc, the Prime Minister had said, had been selected as it enjoyed a high reputation as a centre of excellence in research and development.

Chidambaram, too, had announced: “We shall work to make the IISc, in a few years, a world-class university.”

Another scientist wryly added that after the terrorist attack last December, the institute had indeed become world famous.

Established in 1909 by industrialist J.N. Tata, the sprawling, wooded campus is home to over 2,000 researchers.

working in almost all frontier areas of science and technology.

Scores of leading scientists and technologists of the country ? including C.V. Raman, Homi J. Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai ? have been closely associated with the institute over the nine decades of its existence.