National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli

National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli (NIT Tiruchirappalli or NIT Trichy) is a public technical and research university near the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It was founded as Regional Engineering College Tiruchirappalli in 1964 by the Governments of India and Tamil Nadu under the affiliation of the University of Madras. The college was granted Deemed University status in 2003 with the approval of the University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Government of India and renamed as National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli. The institute is recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India under the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (NITSER) Act, 2007 and is one of the members of the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) system, a group of premier Indian technical institutes governed by the Council of NITSER.

NIT Trichy is funded by the Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India; and focuses exclusively on engineering, management, science, technology and architecture. The institute offers 10 bachelor's, 40 master's and 17 doctoral programmes through its 17 academic departments and awards more than 1900 degrees annually. The ''National Institutional Ranking Framework'' ''(NIRF)'' ranked the institute first among the NITs for seven years in a row from 2016 to 2022. ''NIRF'' also ranked the institute 5 for architecture, 8 for engineering, 3 for management and 23 overall among the academic institutions in India in 2022. NIT Trichy was titled the "Best Industry-linked Centrally Funded Technical Institution in India" by the Confederation of Indian Industry in 2015, and "University of the Year" by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in 2017.
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History

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was the prime minister of India from 1947 to 1964, wanted India to become a world leader in science and technology. Under his administration, the central government started fourteen regional engineering colleges (RECs) between 1959 and 1965 at several cities in India. The REC at Tiruchirappalli was established in 1964 under the affiliation of the University of Madras, as a co-operative venture between the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu.

The founder of the college was Prof. P.S. Manisundaram, a pioneering educationist in India. He was a graduate of Loyola College, Chennai and the Technical University of Nova Scotia (now part of Dalhousie University), Canada. He served as the principal of REC Tiruchirappalli from its formation in 1964 to 1982.

In the early 1980s, the state government began to find the logistics of controlling these colleges from Madras to be tedious and split the aegis into the Bharathidasan and Bharathiar universities for the Tiruchirappalli and Coimbatore areas, respectively. In 1982, the college was thus incorporated under the Bharathidasan University umbrella, of which Dr. P.S. Manisundaram served as the inaugural vice-chancellor. The institute would grant degrees under this name for the next 20 years, except for a brief stint under Anna University in 2001 and 2002. The college continued its progress under Bharathidasan University.

In 2001, Anna University was granted authority over REC Tiruchirappalli. This was temporary, however, as the 40-year collaboration between the central and the state governments for all the RECs finally dissolved; the central government upgraded all the RECs to NITs and completely took control of them under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now known as the Ministry of Education). In 2002, former minister of human resource development Murali Manohar Joshi decided to upgrade the RECs to NITs. At the end of that very same year, the institution was granted deemed university status with the approval of the UGC and AICTE; it was renamed the National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli and was finally granting degrees under its own name. In 2007, the National Institutes of Technology Act (now known as the NITSER Act) was passed, which declared NITs as Institutes of National Importance along the lines of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

NIT Trichy celebrated its golden jubilee anniversary on July 19 and 20, 2014, with the president of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee presiding over the event as the chief guest.

Campus

Main Zone

The campus spans and is one of the largest academic campuses in India. The main entrance is located on the southern end of the campus, facing National Highway 67. There is one other entrance, popularly called the Staff Gate. The institute's academic facilities are located in the southern half of the campus; these include the department buildings, laboratories and workshops, lecture halls, computer centres and the central library. The campus has separate buildings for the departments of nine engineering, architecture, management, computer applications, energy and environment engineering.

Administrative building

The administrative building with its clock tower is one of the institute's landmarks. This building houses the administrative offices and also the offices of the director and deans. The eastern and western wings of this building were occupied by the physics and chemistry departments respectively prior to the opening of new building buildings for the same departments in 2016.

Orion

The Orion is the lecture hall complex for the undergraduate students and consists of twenty-four large lecture halls. Each hall can accommodate around two hundred students and consists of projectors and televisions to make the lectures interactive. The shape of the Orion building is number eight. A decommissioned MIG-23 jet, presented by the Indian Air Force to the institute, is installed near the Orion building.

Central library

NIT Trichy has a modern central library with more than two and a half lakh of documents consisting of technical books, reports, standards, compact disks and back volumes of journals. The library subscribes to more than two hundred print periodicals, more than five thousand e-Journals and more than six hundred e-books besides a holding of around eighteen thousand back volumes of journals. The library also contains around two lakh books in the Book Bank scheme. The institute is holding membership with British Council Library, Chennai. They are also holding membership with Developing Library Network, New Delhi and providing Inter-Library Loan services to the users. The library also provides air-conditioned and Wi-Fi enabled reading halls. It is situated opposite to the civil engineering department building. The building also houses the Centre for Entrepreneurial Development and Incubation (CEDI). The old library building temporarily houses the Indian Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli.

Octagon centre

The Octagon is the institute's primary computer centre, with eight computer labs, printing facilities and a variety of engineering software for use by students. The Octagon also serves as a central hub for interconnecting the campus-wide LAN. This LAN caters to totally six thousand users across the campus and has a 10 Gbit/s fibre optic backbone. The original facility, opened in 1990, was extended into the second building in 2006; there are plans to further expand the facility in view of the increase in student enrollment. A brand new computer centre was inaugurated in the year 2016 which houses more than three hundred computers.

Residential zone

Residential facilities are provided on campus for students, faculty and staff of the institute. Most students live on campus in the residential hostels. In all, there are twenty-two boys' and five girls' hostels with a capacity of five thousand students. With the exception of the girls' hostel, all the others are located on the northern side of the campus. Meals are served by two mega messes and two government messes along with a pure vegetarian mess located on campus. There are several cafeterias on campus where food is available for purchase. Other amenities on campus include a guest house, a modern hospital, an Apollo pharmacy, an India Post office, State Bank of India and its two ATMs, one Canara Bank ATM, Cafe Coffee day restaurant, Naturals parlor and one supermarket.

The institute has a student activity centre (SAC) and is the hub for most of the major extra-curricular activities. The SAC building was inaugurated in the year 2012. The dance, music and the National Cadet Corps groups carry out all their activities at the SAC. It also houses the Café Coffee Day restaurant.

Organisation

Academic departments

The institute has 17 departments.

Management School

The NIT Trichy's Department of Management Studies (DoMS) is one of the oldest business schools in India, started in 1978 and offers MBA programme. They offered Dual specialisation in Marketing, Finance, Business Analytics and IT Consulting, Human Resources and Operations. Unlike the rest of the courses in the university, DoMS follows a trimester pattern with a two-month compulsory internship at the end of the first year. In 2012, the department was named "Outstanding Business School in South India" in the Bloomberg UTV awards.

Governance

The president of India is the ''ex officio'' visitor of all the NITs. The Council of NITSER (formerly NIT Council) works directly under the president and it includes the minister-in-charge of technical education in Central Government, the chairmen and the directors of all the NITs, the chairman of the University Grants Commission, the director-general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the directors of other selected central institutions of repute, members of Parliament, the joint council secretary of the Ministry of Education, nominees of the Central Government, the All India Council for Technical Education and the visitor.

Below the NIT Council is each NIT's board of governors. The board of governors of each NIT consists of the chairman and ten members, which include government, industry, alumni and faculty representation.

The director serves under the board of governors and is the school's chief academic and executive officer. Academic policies are decided by its Senate, which is composed of some professors and other representatives. The Senate controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations, and results. Senate committees examine specific academic matters. The teaching, training, and research activities of various departments of the institute are periodically reviewed to maintain educational standards. The director is the ex officio chairman of the Senate. The deputy director is subordinate to the director. Together they manage the deans, heads of departments, the registrar, the president of the Students' Council, and the chairman of the Hall Management Committee. Deans and heads of departments in NITs are administrative postings rather than career paths. Faculty members serve as deans and heads of departments for limited periods, typically two to three years, then returning to regular faculty duties. The registrar is the chief administrative officer and overviews day-to-day operations. Below the head of department, are the various faculty members (professors, assistant professors, and lecturers). The warden serves under the chairman of the Hall Management Committee.

Academics

NIT Trichy offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in disciplines spanning engineering, science, arts, architecture and management. The institute has 17 departments with more than 250 faculty members and 6,000 enrolled students. The following explains the academic programmes offered by the institute and their admission procedure:

Undergraduate

The institute awards Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) degrees in nine engineering disciplines as well as the Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) degree through its architecture discipline. The B.Tech. and B.Arch. degree programmes are four and five years long respectively.

Admission for Indian candidates to the undergraduate programmes is highly competitive and is based on the rank secured in the Joint Entrance Examination – Main (JEE Main) and selection through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) and Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB). To be eligible for admission in the undergraduate programmes, the candidates in the general category have to secure at least 75% marks or be in the top 20 percentile and the candidates in the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) category have to secure at least 65% in the 12th class examination conducted by the respective Boards. The JEE Main is considered to be one of the toughest examinations in the world and the high school science students who clear the examination with top ranks generally opt NIT Trichy as their first choice for admissions in undergraduate programmes. Admission for Foreign Nationals, Children of Indian Workers in the Gulf Countries (CIWG), Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs), Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) in the undergraduate programmes is based on the rank secured in the JEE Main and selection through the online portal of Direct Admission of Students Abroad (DASA).

Postgraduate

The institute offers 40 master's programmes, which include 23 programmes leading to Master of Technology (M.Tech.) degrees, 9 programmes in engineering leading to Master of Science (M.S.) by research degrees, 4 programmes in science and computer science leading to Master of Science (M.Sc.) degrees and a programme in architecture, arts, computer applications and business leading to Master of Architecture (M.Arch), Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Computer Applications (MCA) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) respectively.

To be eligible for admission to the postgraduate programmes, the candidate has to secure a minimum percentage or CGPA set by the institute or admission authorities of the government of India in the qualifying degree from a university or an institute recognized by the Association of Indian Universities or similar Indian body. Admission to the M.Tech. and M.Arch. programmes is based on the merit list prepared by the Centralized Counseling for M.Tech./M.Arch./M.Plan./M.Des. (CCMT) on the basis of Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) scores as well as selection through CCMT online portal. Admission to the M.S. by research programmes is based on the GATE score and personal interview conducted by the institute. Admission to the M.Sc. programmes is based on the merit list prepared by the Centralized Counselling for M.Sc./M.Sc.(Tech.) (CCMN) on the basis of the ″Common Percentile″ (calculated from the Joint Admission Test for Masters (JAM) Rank) and selection through the CCMN online portal. Admission to the MCA programme is based on the rank secured in the NIT MCA Common Entrance Test (NIMCET) and selection through the NIMCET online portal. Admission to the M.A. programme is through the interview conducted by the institute. Admission to the MBA programme is through the rank secured in the Common Admission Test and personal interviews conducted by the institute.

Applicants interested in seeking admission to the postgraduate programmes who are foreign nationals, PIOs, OCIs who have completed undergraduate programme in any country (including India) or Indian nationals who have completed their undergraduate programme outside India or Indian nationals who have acquired NRI status and holding it for the last three years after obtaining undergraduate degree from India or Indian nationals who have completed undergraduate programme in any centrally funded technical institute (CFTI) under the DASA Scheme or Indian nationals who have completed undergraduate programme in India but have completed their 11th and 12th standard (or equivalent) from outside India, are requested to check the admission details in DASA and institute websites.

The institute also offers 17 Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) degrees programmes. Admissions to the PhD programmes are based on written tests followed by personal interviews conducted by the institute. The doctoral research scholars are given a topic by the professor or work on the consultancy projects sponsored by the industry. Teaching assistantships (TA) and research assistantships (RA) are provided based on the scholar's profile.

Reputation and rankings

General ranking

Globally, NIT Trichy is ranked 1546 by the ''Center for World University Rankings'' ''(CWUR)'' in 2022, 801–1000 by the ''QS World University Rankings (QS)'' and ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' ''(THE)'' in 2023, and 1413 by the '' U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking'' ''(USNWR)'' in 2022-2023.

In Asia, the institute is ranked 281–290 by '' QS'' in 2023, 301–350 by '' THE'' in 2022 and 450 by ''USNWR'' in 2022-2023. Also, the institute was ranked 126 in BRICS nations by '' QS'' in 2019 and 301–350 in emerging economies by '' THE'' in 2022.

In India, the institute is ranked 40 by '' CWUR'' in 2022, 21 overall by ''NIRF'' in 2022, 27 by '' QS'' in 2020 and 41 by ''USNWR'' in 2022-2023.

Research performance

The ''SCImago Institutions Rankings

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