Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology

Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), formerly Visvesvaraya Regional College of Engineering, Nagpur (VRCE), is a public engineering and research institution in India.  It is located in Nagpur, Maharashtra, in central India.  It was established in June 1960 by the Government of India and later named in honor of engineer, planner and statesman, Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya. 

VNIT Nagpur is centrally-funded and belongs to the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) system.  In 2007, the institute was conferred the status of Institute of National Importance by an Act of Parliament of India.  The institute awards bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in engineering, technology and architecture. 

Campus

The VNIT Nagpur campus is located in the western part of Nagpur city near Ambazari Lake, about  from Nagpur Railway Station and  from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, Nagpur.  There are three main entrances to the  campus: the Main Gate on South Ambazari Road, the Bajaj Nagar Gate and the Yashwant Nagar Gate. 

Academics

Departments, Laboratories and Research Centers
VNIT Nagpur has various academic departments, with over 30 specialized laboratories and research centers. 

Departments and Laboratories

Centers

Programmes
Undergraduate programs are offered in Architecture (B.Arch) and 8 Engineering (B.Tech) disciplines:
 Chemical Engineering
 Civil Engineering
 Computer Science and Engineering
 Electrical and Electronics Engineering
 Electronics and Communications Engineering
 Mechanical Engineering
 Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
 Mining Engineering
The Engineering undergraduate programs are usually of four-year duration, while Architecture has a five-year program.  The institute accepts an incoming freshman class size of up to 798 students. 

Graduate and research programs, leading to Master's (M.Arch and M.Tech) and Ph.D. degrees, are offered by the Architecture and all 8 Engineering departments.  A range of special fields of study are available in graduate and research programs in each discipline.  The institute will soon offer Aeronautical Engineering.  Up to 350 students are admitted to the Master's program each year. 

The institute uses relative grading on a 10-point scale. 

Admissions
Till 2012-13, admission to the undergraduate courses (B.Tech) at NITs was through the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE).  From the year 2013-14, admission to the undergraduate courses (B.Tech) is through the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main.  The National Institutes of Technology (NITs) have one of the lowest acceptance rates for engineering institutes, of around 2 to 3 percent, second only to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in India. 

From 2015, Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSSA) conducts common counselling and allocates seats jointly for all Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs).  In 2015, over 1,300,000 candidates appeared for the JEE exam for admission to 28,000 undergraduate engineering seats (B.Tech) in 68 centrally-funded technical institutes that included all 19 IITs (10,000 seats), 31 NITs (15,500 seats) and 18 IIITs (2,500 seats). 

For B.Tech at VNIT Nagpur in 2015, the acceptance rates were as following:
 Computer Science and Engineering: 0.33 percent
 Electronics and Communication Engineering: 0.58 percent
 Mechanical Engineering: 0.67 percent
 Electrical and Electronics Engineering: 0.82 percent
 Civil Engineering: 1.23 percent
 Chemical Engineering: 1.50 percent
 Metallurgical and Materials Engineering: 2.18 percent
 Mining Engineering: 2.61 percent

Undergraduate admissions for foreign students and NRIs are done through Direct Admission of Students Abroad (DASA) scheme which considers SAT scores. 

80% of students to the postgraduate programs (M.Tech) are admitted based on performance in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) conducted by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).  These students receive stipends and tuition assistance from the institute and the Indian government.  Another 20% of students are admitted based on industry or other research organization sponsorship, with full tuition typically paid by the sponsoring institution. 

The institute invites applications for PhD degree admissions in all departments, every academic year. 

Rankings

VNIT Nagpur has been ranked 31 among engineering colleges in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2019, and 24 by Outlook India in 2019. 

Academic Collaboration and Sponsored Research
The 18th National Seminar on Aerospace Structures (NASAS) was organized by VNIT Nagpur in association with Jawaharlal Nehru Aluminium Research Development and Design Centre (JNARDDC) Nagpur, Aeronautical Research and Development Board (AR & DB), Ministry of Defence, Government of India, New Delhi and Maintenance Command, Indian Air Force, Nagpur. 

The institute has academic collaboration with the many universities in India and abroad.  During the year 2015 alone, VNIT Nagpur signed 7 MoUs with International Universities and 21 MoUs with National Institutions, Laboratories and Industries.  These collaborative programmes include student and faculty exchange, internships for students and joint research activities among others.  Some of the major universities which have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with VNIT Nagpur are:
 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
 National Institute of Technology, Warangal
 National Institute of Technology Raipur
 National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand
 College of Engineering, Pune
 Aichi Gakuin University, Japan
 ESIEE Paris, France
 Belarusian National Technical University, Belarus
 Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics, Belarus
 New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
 Beijing Normal University, China
 Hunan University, China
 Southwest University for Nationalities, China
 Jiangshu University, China
 ISAN Medical Institute, South Korea
VNIT Nagpur was one of 12 institutes selected by the MHRD, Government of India, for the BRICS Network University on behalf of India.  The institute was identified for the knowledge field ‘Ecology and Climate Change’ and participated in the Indian delegation that attended the Conference of the BRICS held at Ekaterinburg, Russia.  A special protocol to the MoU on the establishment of the BRICS Network University was signed by Dr Narendra Chaudhari, Director, VNIT Nagpur. 

Departments of the institute are involved in various research projects funded by the Department of Science and Technology (India) and other public and private corporations.  VNIT Nagpur has been granted World Bank assisted technical project for Applied Research in Combedded Systems with the status of Center of Excellence (CoE) under the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme Phase-II (TEQIP-II).  This program includes a grant of Rs.  5 crore.  Such a center at VNIT Nagpur is one among six National Institutes of Technology centers which have got the status of Center of Excellence. 

VNIT Nagpur has also partnered IIT Bombay and College of Engineering Pune in a R&D project in 'Biomedical Engineering and Technology Center Incubation' costing Rs.  39.4 crore. 

The institute will soon have a state-of-the-art research laboratory for robotics on its premises as per a pact with Switzerland-based robotic technology bellwether, Asea Brown Boveri (ABB). 

A team from the faculty of Applied Mechanics (structural dynamics and earthquake engineering) at the institute was asked by NGO SEEDS to visit Nepal in the aftermath of the earthquake in 2015 for providing technical support to them.  The team from the department had earlier visited Gujarat when an earthquake struck the state in 2001 and Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 2004 when a tsunami struck there after a massive quake in Sumatra, Indonesia. 

Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation Limited (NMRCL) has tied-up with VNIT Nagpur for testing facilities and inputs on the metro's structural drawings, inspection and testing of materials. 

VNIT Nagpur has adopted nine villages in Amravati, Nagpur and Jalgaon districts under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) aimed at bringing grass roots level changes in rural areas through technological interventions from academic and research institutes, without affecting the local culture. 

Festivities
The student clubs host a number of annual fests or events, inviting participants from colleges across the nation.  These fests include:
 Axis, a science and technology fest
 Aarohi, a music and cultural festival
 consortium, entrepreneurship summit

Alumni

Anand Teltumbde
 Hemant Karkare, Late Chief of Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad
 Neelam Saxena Chandra,  poet and author
 Sanjay Joshi, former member of the Bhartiya Janata Party national executive; Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Pracharak and Hindu fundamentalist
 Dinesh Keskar, President, Boeing India
 Pradeep Kar, Chairman and founder, Microland
 Vijay P. Bhatkar, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri awardee, scientist, Founding Director of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing
 Samir Barua, Director, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
 Ramesh Jain, Bren Professor of Information & Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine
 Akhilesh K. Gaharwar, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University
 Satyendra Pakhale, industrial designer
 Sudev Nair, Actor

References

External links
  

Category:Engineering colleges in Nagpur
Category:National Institutes of Technology
Category:Organisations based in Nagpur
Category:Educational institutions established in 1960
Category:1960 establishments in India