IIT's in India

The Indian Institutes of Technology popularly known as IIT’s, are a group of fifteen autonomous engineering and technology institutes established as Institutes of National Importance by the Parliament of India. These highly rated institutes are situated in the different part of the India. In chronological order they are situated in

Kharagpur -1951
Mumbai -1958
Chennai -1959
Kanpur -1959
Delhi -1963
Guwahati -1994
Roorkee - 2001
Bhubaneswar - 2008
Gandhinagar - 2008
Hyderabad - 2008
Patna - 2008
Punjab - 2008
Rajasthan - 2008
Himachal Pradesh - 2009

Indian Government has proposals to add three more IIT’s, to be established at Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh (by converting IT BHU to IIT). The most important feature of these some of the best engineering and technology institutions in the world is that each of the IIT’s is an autonomous university, linked to the others through a common IIT Council, which oversees their administration. The admission for the undergraduate courses to these institutes is through a highly competitive Joint Entrance Examination known as IIT-JEE in common parlance. This exam is held on yearly basis usually in the month of April-May to select around 4,500 undergraduate candidates every year from amongst approximately 3,00,000 aspiring candidates that take this test for taking admission in various trades of engineering and technology. Whereas admissions to Postgraduate courses is given on the basis of the GATE, JMET, JAM and CEED exams.

Because of the autonomy given to these IIT’s, these institutes are among those few institutes in India that offer degrees in technology (B. Tech.) at the undergraduate level as opposed to the Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degrees awarded by most of the other Indian universities. All IITs are autonomous universities that draft their own curricula, and they are members of LAOTSE, an international network of universities in Europe and Asia. LAOTSE membership allows the IIT’s to exchange students and senior scholars with universities in other countries.

As far as the organizational structure of the IIT’s is concerned The President of India being the ex officio Visitor is the most powerful person in the administrative set up of the IIT’s . Directly under the President is the IIT Council comprising the minister-in-charge of technical education in the Union Government, the Chairmen of all IITs, the Directors of all IITs, the Chairman of the University Grants Commission, the Director General of CSIR, the Chairman of IISc, the Director of IISc, three members of Parliament, the Joint Council Secretary of Ministry of Human Resource and Development, and three appointees each of the Union Government, AICTE, and the Visitor. The Registrar is the chief administrative officer of the IIT and overviews the day-to-day operations.