The IITs are India's premier institutes for education in technology. Construction work is common inside the IIT campuses.
Contractors usually employ temporary workers who set up shelters inside the campus.
Ironically, inspite of having excellent educational facilities for primary, secondary and higher education within its campuses, the majority of the laborers in the IITs are either illiterate or semi-literate. Occasionally, some students have tried to change the status quo by conducting adult literacy classes or through NSS activities. However, most of these efforts fizzled out due to lack of enthusiasm and long-term involvement. The Swami Vivekananda Youth group in IIT Kanpur has been an exception to this rule. Mahendra Verma, a Ph.D from the University of Maryland, College Park, returned to India as a professor in IITK in 1994.