Ranchi, Feb. 26: Out of four, only one institute of Jharkhand has managed to equal or surpass the national average score under World Bank sponsored Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP).

Against the national average of 6.6 out of 10, private university BIT, Mesra, has scored 6.7 while BIT, Sindri, has scored 5.4 — much better than the poor record in the last review though it is still below the national average. The two government polytechnics at Ranchi and Dumka have scored 2.1 and 4.2 respectively.

The scores were based on feedback from different stakeholders including staff, faculty, students, employers and infrastructure.The review results were declared recently after a World Bank team visited the state capital in the last week of January. State science and technology department director Arun Kumar told The Telegraph that this time BIT, Sindri, has reason to cheer after the World Bank rated it 5.4 in the quality performance audit of TEQIP. Last time, the institute scored only 2.8, second last in the country, in a quality performance audit of 123 institutes across the country covered under TEQIP.

As far as the government polytechnic at Ranchi is concerned, the review stated that there is a lack of academic ambience as out of 53 acres of government land earmarked for the institute, residents have encroached upon over 40 acre.

The state received Rs 35 crore a few years ago under TEQIP with a larger chunk granted to BIT, Mesra, (around Rs 20 crore) followed by BIT, Sindri (about Rs 12 crore). Both the polytechnics received Rs 1 crore each while the rest of the funds was earmarked for establishment cost. The first phase of the programme that was supposed to end by June 2008 has been extended till March 31, 2009, as institutes have failed to utilise total funds under the programme.