National Institutes of Technology (NITs)

The National Institutes of Technology (NITs), are esteemed colleges of engineering and technology education in India and are the new face of the existing Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs). In 2002, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, decided to upgrade, in phases, all the original 17 Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) as National Institutes of Technology (NITs) on the lines of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The NITs, have the responsibility of providing high quality education in engineering and technology to produce competent technical manpower for the country.

There are currently 20 NITs, the latest being NIT, Agartala and Karaikal. The Government of India has introduced the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) Act 2007 to bring 20 such institutions within the ambit of the act and to provide them with complete autonomy in their functioning. The NITs are deliberately scattered throughout the country in line with the government norm of an NIT in every major state of India to promote regional development. The individual NITs, after the introduction of the NIT Act, have been functioning as autonomous technical universities and hence can draft their own curriculum and functioning policies.

It was the dream of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to see India emerge as a leader in science and technology. In order to serve the growing demand for trained quality technical manpower, the Government Of India started fourteen RECs between 1959 and 1965 (NITs located at Bhopal, Allahabad, Calicut, Durgapur, Kurukshetra, Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Nagpur, Rourkela, Srinagar, Surathkal, Surat, Tiruchirappalli, and Warangal). Three other NITs were added between 1970 and 1990 (NITs located at Silchar, Hamirpur, and Jalandhar). The 21st (and the first brand-new) NIT is coming up at Imphal in the north-eastern state of Manipur at an initial cost of Rs. 500 crores. All the twenty NITs now offer degree courses at bachelors, masters, and doctorate levels in various branches of engineering and technology. The entire non-recurring expenditure and expenditure for post-graduate courses during the REC times were borne by the central government.

There are presently the latest being NIT, Raipur. The NITs are deliberately scattered throughout the country with the idea of having one NIT in every major state of India to achieve balanced regional development. The NITs are rated just next to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in terms of quality of education, research and placements.

Education:

The NIT brand is regarded very highly as one of the premier technical education institutes in India. Before getting the NIT status from MHRD, the RECs were under respective state governments control. Consequently, lesser funds and, at times, regional politics resulted in a lack of direction. But despite the problems, NITs have churned out quality graduates who can compete with the best. The student community has started seeing NITs as a quality alternative to IITs and as a result, NITs have some of the best students from all over India. Since REC days, students from these institutes have been achieving great success in their careers. Many of them have become entrepreneurs and have floated their own companies.

The reputation of NITs as centres of excellence has gained acceptance in industry as well as in academia, primarily because the standard of education and quality of NIT students has been consistently better than most other colleges in India. This has led to the establishment of a so-called brand name for the institutes. Various nationwide college surveys rate most of the NITs over other colleges in India, except for the IITs and a few other institutions, confirming the eliteness of NITs in the field of technical education. The NITs function autonomously, since their upgradation from being an REC, sharing only the entrance tests between them. The autonomy in education enable the NITs to set up their own curriculum, thereby making it easier to adapt rapidly to the changes in industry requirements.

The course schedules are divided into semesters with evaluation on the basis of the credits system, which allows for proportional weighting of subjects based on their importance. For each semester, the students are graded on a scale from 0 to 10 based on their performance throughout the semester. Each semester's evaluation is done independently and then the weighted overall average of all the semesters is used to evaluate the cumulative grade point average (CGPA).

The NITs, like the IITs, are also planning to start a special dual degree programs. It is an integrated postgraduate program that completes in a total of 5 years rather than 6 years in the conventional track of a B.Tech followed by an M.Tech degree. The dual degree programs encourage academic research, therefore, based on their success in the IITs, this integrated program is being introduced for various new courses in NITs, especially for mathematics and computing. Some NITs have recently started offering 'Research Scholar' programmes to encourage research oriented thinking in young minds. IIT Kanpur has recently started an undergraduate research scholar programme (10-week long summer program) for their own students as well as for all sophomore and pre final year NIT students. It is part of a Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) and the IITs are doing a good job in improving the quality of staff in NITs under this programme.

Admission Procedure :

Admissions in the NITs are done through a merit list published after the result of All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE).Some of the NITs such as NIT Tiruchirappalli is consistently rated among the Top Ten Engineering Colleges in India.

Admissions to the postgraduate programmes are made through various other exams, like Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE)-for admission to M.Tech courses. The NITs may also conduct a separate individual examination followed by an interview for admission to the postgraduate courses. Dual-degree courses in both science and technology in emerging areas are also planned to be introduced from the coming sessions.

NITs MCA Common Entrance Test (NIMCET)- for admission to MCA courses offered by the CSE department of respective NIT.

A common entrance examination for admission to the MBA and M.Sc courses offered by some of the NITs has been finalised . This will be introduced from the academic year 2007-2008. The exam will be on the basis of the CAT conducted by the IIMs. Separate examinations/interviews are conducted by each NIT for admission to their M.Tech(Research) and Ph. D programmes.

Reservation Policy:

NITs have been offering reservation Backward Classes and this is a reservation of : i) 15% for Scheduled Castes ii) 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes.

In May 2006 the Government declared new reservation policy for seats in Central Government Institutions by allotting 27% reservation for OBC category students (93rd amendment act of Indian Constitution).

NIT Act 2007:

There has been a long standing demand for more number of IITs in India. But due to the enormous costs and infrastructure involved in creating a new IIT from scratch, the Indian government decided to upgrade all the RECs (Regional Engineering Colleges) to NITs in 2002. After the upgradation, NITs came under a complete control of central government and the government is trying to replicate the IIT system in these institutes. With Indian technology industry booming like never before, the government decided to upgrade twenty National Institutes of Technology to full-fledged technical universities. Moreover, a bill was introduced in the Parliament of India to enable NITs in becoming centres of excellence like IITs. The target is to fulfill the need for quality manpower in the field of engineering, science, and technology and to provide similar governance, fee structure, and rules in all the NITs. The modified bill has been passed by both the houses of Parliament and will be implemented from 15 August 2007.

Student life:

All the NITs provide on campus housing to its students, research scholars, and faculty members. The students live in hostels, also known as halls, throughout their college life. Most of the students have single accommodation but a sizable number of students have to live in double or triple rooms during their initial years. Every hostel has a recreation room equipped with cable television, magazines, newspapers, and indoor games. Moreover, internet connectivity is provided to help students complete their assignments online (whenever applicable) in all the rooms. Every hall in NITs has its own mess managed by the college administration, or by a local private organization in some NITs. In addition to the hall messes, all the NITs have a common canteen for students and a separate common canteen for professors. During vacations, hostel messes are generally closed and the common canteens serve students who choose to stay on campus. All the NITs have their Central Library with good collection of Technical books, Literature, Fiction, Scientific Journals and other electronic material.

Intranet among NITs (NITNET):

NITNET may be implemented as a VPN (Virtual Private Network) through a well established ISP. For this purpose, the Ministry of Human Resources Department (MHRD) would be requested to sanction an initial grant of Rs 10 crores, with a recurring charge of Rs 5 lakhs per annum for each institute. Motilal Nehru NIT, Allahabad is constructing a small building to commemorate the golden jubilee of the REC/NIT scheme of the Government of India. The building would have a data center and the nodal intranet centre may be housed in this building. After fine-tuning the technological specifications, a proposal would be made to all the directors and upon consensus, MHRD would be requested for the funds.

List of National Institutes of Technology (NITs) in the India:

1. National Institute of Technology(NIT) Agartala

2. Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad

3. Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology Bhopal

4. National Institute of Technology Calicut

5. National Institute of Technology Durgapur

6. National Institute of Technology Hamirpur

7. Malviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur

8. National Institute of Technology Jalandhar

9. National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur

10. National Institute of Technology Karnataka

11. National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra