Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were established to cater to the country’s growing need for trained manpower with higher learning in science and technology. The Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, first of the chain of fifteen IITs, was established in 1950 in the idyllic and sylvan settings at Hijli in West Bengal. From a modest start in the dilapidated Hijli jail building, IIT Kharagpur has grown into one of the largest and most well-known technological institutes of the country. The handsome main building with its majestic tower was inaugurated in 1956. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the first convocation in the same year said “here in the place of that Hijli detention camp stands this fine monument of India, representing India’s urges, India’s future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolic of changes that are coming to India”.
Today, IIT Kharagpur has come a long way to its present position of pre-eminence with 19 academic departments, 8 multidisciplinary centres, a School of Management, a School of Telecommunications, a School of Medical Science and Technology, a School of Information Technology and a School of Intellectual Property Law, a School of Water Resources, a School of Infrastructure Design and Management, a School of Engineering Entrepreneurship and several sophisticated central facilities. It is the largest and the most diversified among all the IITs and continuously strives to produce scientists and technologists of the highest calibre and integrity to help the nation become self-reliant in its technological needs and to provide leadership in the field of technical education and research. Some of the distinctive features of the programmes at IIT Kharagpur are science based engineering education, emphasis on complete education, continuous internal evaluation and flexibility for experimentation, up gradation and innovation in curriculum design. IIT Kharagpur has a number of distinctions to its credit among all the IITs, such as the first Master’s programme on Management, first Master’s Programme on Medical Science and Technology for practicing Medical Doctors. In a study, sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, IIT Kharagpur is found to have the highest relative employment productivity index among the IITs and is the top supplier of fresh engineers/technologists to the public and private sector industries. It also ranked first among the IITs in the production of science and engineering PhDs.
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