"National Institutes of Technology" An Introduction

National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are premier colleges of engineering and technology education in India. They were originally called 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). There are currently 20 NITs, the latest being NIT, Agartala. 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.

The KVPY is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. The program is administered by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc, Bangalore), through the overall control of the Chief Executive (SID). The selection of students from those who are studying +1, +2, any U.G. Program including First/Second year Engineering/Medicine are carried out by IISc (Bangalore), IIT-Bombay (Mumbai), and ICMR (New Delhi), respectively, in association with two Zonal Centres one at Kolkata (Indian Institute of Science Education Research, Kolkata) and another at Mumbai (HBCSE, TIFR).

National Institute of Technology, Warangal (Estb. - 1959)

Maulana Azad NIT, Bhopal (Estb. - 1960)

National Institute of Technology, Durgapur (Estb. - 1960)

National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur (Estb. - 1960)

Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur (Estb. - 1960)

National Institute of Technology, Srinagar (Estb. - 1960)

National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal (Estb. - 1960)

Motilal Nehru National Institute Of Technology, Allahabad (MNNIT) (Estb. - 1961)

National Institute Of Technology, Calicut (Estb. - 1961)

National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (Estb. - 1961)

Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat (Estb. - 1961)

National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra (Estb. - 1963)

National Institute of Technology, Jaipur (Estb. - 1963)

National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli (Estb. - 1964)

National Institute Of Technology Silchar (Estb. - 1967)

National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur (Estb. - 1986)

Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar (Estb. - 1987)

National Institute of Technology Patna (Converted into NITs in - 2004)

National Institute of Technology, Raipur ( Converted into NITs in - 2005)

National Institute of Technology, Agartala ( Converted into NITs in - 2006)
Future

Reposing Faith in organisational capacity and technical infrastructure of the NIT system the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has decided to entrust the task of conducting the AIEEE to NITs themselves starting from 2008-09 session itself.


Earlier, the counselling procedure was dealt by a Central Counselling Board (CCB) based at New Delhi.The important decision to this effect was taken by the MHRD on the advice of the NIT Director's meeting who had unanimously advocated transferring of the responsibility for CCB of AIEEE counselling to NITs.


Every year director of a NIT will be the chairman of the CCB along with the selected directors of other institutes in the counselling board. The NITs will conduct the counselling and assume the responsibility of setting question papers as well from the year 2010. Similar to the conduct of the IIT-JEE and counselling by one of the six IITs in the country every year on a rotation basis, one among the 20 NITs in the country would be made a nodal agency for the conduct of AIEEE every year.