Kharagpur, Aug. 6: IIT Kharagpur today got a rude reminder that it lacked the "kind of prominence" it deserved and was in need of proper branding.

"IIT Kharagpur had a glorious start and has made progress continuously, from different perspectives. However, I do feel that the outstanding performance is not as well known in society as it ought to be. Thus, as is popularly said, branding is required," chemical scientist Man Mohan Sharma said while delivering a lecture at the 63rd convocation of the institute.

The former director of the Institute of Chemical Technology, who was chief guest at the convocation, explained why he was qualified to make such a suggestion: "I was chairman of the standing committee of the IIT council. I was also the chairman of the board of governors at IIT Madras. I don't know for what reason IIT Kgp, that why it does not find that kind of prominence it richly deserves."

Several teachers and former students of the institute agreed while speaking to Metro after the convocation that there was a need to do more to highlight the strengths of the oldest of India's 23 IITs.

An alumnus who works at a multinational company in Mumbai said branding distinguished IIT Madras and IIT Bombay from the others.

"They have engaged professional agencies to vigorously showcase the research output of the students and the faculty. They use social networking sites to great effect. A better showcasing makes IIT Madras and IIT Bombay the preferred destinations of the top-rankers," said the former student of the Kharagpur campus who refused to be identified.

At the end of this year's admission season, the Kharagpur tech school has nine vacant BTech seats.

Only three institutes have a higher number of vacant BTech seats - IIT (Banaras Hindu University) Varanasi, IIT (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad and IIT Jammu. While the Varanasi institute has 32 vacant seats, the count stands at 23 and 13 for the ones in Dhanbad and Jammu, respectively.

The IITs in Mumbai, Chennai, Ropar, Palakkad and Goa have one vacant seat each.

According to campus sources, many JEE Adanced top-rankers tend to avoid the Kharagpur institute because it is located 130km from the nearest city, Calcutta.

"The distance wouldn't have mattered had the immediate surroundings been of some reckoning. But that is not the case," a teacher said.

That the location is a problem became clear from what the institute director, Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, said while interacting with reporters after the convocation.

Responding to a question from this newspaper on why his institute wasn't as aggressive as some other IITs in selling itself, Chakrabarti said: "When it comes to real parameters like citation, we are always up. Our problem is about perception. It takes a lot of a time to come to IIT Khagpur from Delhi. That's why there is a perception that we are tucked away in a village."

In his convocation speech, Chakrabarti said: "In keeping with our continuous efforts to improve our global brand image, activities have been undertaken for increasing visibility on social media."

The director later clarified that most of the vacant seats were in the reserved category and the institute was working overtime to hire good teachers from across the world.

In the two-day convocation spread over August 5 and 6, degrees were awarded to more than 2,500 students. Fourteen distinguished alumni were felicitated.