Engineering
National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are premier institutes of engineering and technology in India
and are the new face of the existing Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs). In the year 2002, the Govt.
of India?s Ministry of Human Resource Development, decided to upgrade all the 17 existing 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 presently 19 of them, 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.
The Govt.of India is in the process of introducing the National Institutes of Technology (NIT)
Bill 2006 in parliament to bring these19 NITs within the purview of the new act after which all
the NITs will function as an autonomous technical universities and will be able to decide their
own curriculum and functional policies. The bill upon enactment is likely to come into force from
the year 2007.
The NITs offer B.Tech program in various disciplines of engineering and technology along with
research programs leading to M.Tech and Ph.D.
