page_title: National Institutes of Technology
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: National Institutes of Technology / History
caption_attribution_description: English: NIT Patna Main
context_page_description: The National Institutes of Technology are autonomous public technical and research universities located in India. They are governed by the National Institutes of Technology Act, 2007, which declared them as institutions of national importance and lays down their powers, duties, and framework for governance. The National Institutes of Technology Act, 2007 lists thirty-one institutes. Each NIT is autonomous, linked to the others through a common council, which oversees their administration and all NITs are funded by the Government of India. The Minister of Human Resource Development is the ex officio Chairperson of the NIT Council. These institutes are among the top-ranked engineering colleges in India and have one of the lowest acceptance rates for engineering institutes, of around 1 to 2 percent. The language of instruction is English at all these institutes. As of 2019, the total number of seats for undergraduate programs was 21,133 and for postgraduate programs 10,550 in all the 31 NITs put together.
context_section_description: During the second five-year plan (1956–60) in India, a number of industrial projects were contemplated. The Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) were established by the central government to mimic the IITs at a regional level and act as benchmarks for the other colleges in that state.The admission used to be highly selective. Students topping the respective state's 12th board exam could be admitted at the REC of their state.Thus, seventeen RECs were established from 1959 onwards in each of the major states. Each college was a joint and cooperative enterprise of the central government and the concerned state government. The Government opened 8 RECs in 1960 two in each region, as follows:
  Later on, 5 more were added by 1965. The early 14 Institutes were Srinagar, Warangal, Calicut, Durgapur, Kurukshetra, Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Nagpur, Rourkela, Surathkal, Surat, Tiruchirappalli, Bhopal, and Allahabad. It established one in Silchar in 1967 and added two others located at Hamirpur in 1986, and Jalandhar in 1987.
  These were large-sized institutions judged by the standards then prevailing in the country. The considerations that weighed in this decision were :
  A large-sized college would be more efficient than the equivalent small colleges, the proposed colleges have to meet the additional requirements of the country as a whole and for that purpose should have to function on an all-India basis. Therefore, the smaller they are in number and the larger in size, the better, and for the same reason their location is important from an all-India point of view.
  The RECs were jointly operated by the central government and the concerned state government. Non-recurring expenditures and expenditures for post-graduate courses during the REC period were borne by the central government while recurring expenditure on undergraduate courses was shared equally by central and state governments. They were considered to be the best government engineering colleges after the IITs in India even before their upgrade to National Institutes of Technology.
  The success of the technology-based industry led to high demand for technical and scientific education. Due to the enormous costs and infrastructure involved in creating globally respected Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), in 2002 Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Minister Murli Manohar Joshi decided to upgrade RECs to "National Institutes of Technology" (NITs) instead of creating IITs. The central government controls NITs and provides all funding. In 2002, all RECs became NITs.
   
  The upgrade was designed along the lines of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) after it was concluded that RECs had potential as proven by the success of their alumni and their contributions in the field of technical education and that they were on par with the IITs. Subsequently, funding and autonomy for NITs increased, and they award degrees that have raised their graduates' perceived value.These changes implemented recommendations of the "High Powered Review Committee" (HPRC). The HPRC, chaired by R.A. Mashelkar, submitted its report entitled "Strategic Road Map for Academic Excellence of Future RECs" in 1998.
  In 2004, MHRD issued NIT status to three more colleges, located at Patna (Bihar Engineering College, a 110-year-old college), Raipur (Government Engineering College), and Agartala (Tripura Engineering College). Based on the request of state governments and feasibility, future NITs are either converted from existing institutes or can be freshly created. The 21st (and the first brand-new) NIT is planned for Imphal in the north-eastern state of Manipur at an initial cost of Rs. 500 crores. In 2010, the government announced setting up ten new NITs in the remaining states/territories. This would lead to every state in India having its own NIT.
  With the technology-based industry's continuing growth, the government decided to upgrade twenty National Institutes of Technology to full-fledged technical universities. Parliament passed enabling legislation, the National Institutes of Technology Act in 2007 
caption: Bihar Engineering College, Patna (estd. 1886), third oldest engineering college in India, was converted to NIT Patna in 2007.
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