Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University

Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, established in 1999 by the shrine board that manages the Vaishno Devi pilgrimage, sits on a residential campus at Kakryal near Katra, in the Trikuta foothills of Jammu. The shrine-board backing gives it unusually solid funding for a young institution, and its academic core is technical — engineering, architecture and management — with admission to B.Tech through JEE Main-based counselling. The university holds an A+ grade from NAAC, and fees are moderate, below big private universities. The setting is striking and self-contained: Katra is a pilgrimage town, so campus life supplies most of the social fabric, and Jammu city is the nearest urban centre. It suits students who want a well-funded, disciplined residential campus in the hills rather than a metropolitan college experience.