The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur or IIT KGP) is a public institute of technology, research university, and autonomous institute established by the Government of India in Kharagpur, West Bengal. Founded in 1951, the institute is the first of the IITs to be established and is recognized as an Institute of National Importance. The institution was designated an Institute of Eminence by the Government of India in 2019.
The institute was initially established to train engineers after India attained independence in 1947. However, over the years, the institute's academic capabilities diversified with offerings in Science, management, law, Agriculture, architecture, humanities, medicine, etc. The institute has an campus and has about 22,000 residents.
History
Origins of Higher Technical Institutions in India (1946) In 1946, a committee was set up by Sir Jogendra Singh, Member of the Viceroy's executive council, to consider the creation of higher technical institutions for the industrial development of India post World War II. This was followed by the creation of a 22-member committee headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar. In its interim report, the Sarkar Committee recommended the establishment of higher technical institutions in India, along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and consulting from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign along with affiliated secondary institutions. The report urged that work should start with the speedy establishment of major institutions in the four-quarters of the country with the ones in the east and the west to be set up immediately.
On the grounds that West Bengal had the highest concentration of industries at the time, Bidhan Chandra Roy, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, persuaded Jawaharlal Nehru (India's first prime minister) to establish the first institute in West Bengal. The first Indian Institute of Technology was thus established in May 1950 as the Eastern Higher Technical Institute. It was located in Esplanade East, Calcutta, and in September 1950 shifted to its permanent campus at Hijli, Kharagpur – south-west of Kolkata (formerly called Calcutta). Hijli had been used as a detention camp during the period of British rule in India, where Indian independence activists were imprisoned.IIT Kharagpur is the 4th oldest technical institute in the state after IIEST, Shibpur (established as B.E. College in 1856), Jadavpur University (established as the Bengal Technical Institute in 1906) and Rajabazar Science College (established as Calcutta University campus for Science and Technology in 1914). When the first session started in August 1951, there were 224 students and 42 teachers in the ten departments of the institute. The classrooms, laboratories and the administrative office were housed in the historic building of the Hijli Detention Camp (now known as Shaheed Bhawan), where political revolutionaries were imprisoned during the period of British colonial rule. The office building had served as the headquarters of the Bomber Command of the U.S. 20th Air Force during World War II.
IIT Kharagpur: Naming, Legal Status, and Early Growth The name "Indian Institute of Technology" was adopted before the formal inauguration of the institute on 18 August 1951 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. On 18 May 1956, a Bill (Bill no 36 of 1956)The Gazette of India No 27, 18 May 1956 p 408 was introduced in Lok Sabha to declare the institution known as the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur to be an institution of national importance and to provide for its incorporation and matters connected therewith. The motto of the institute, योगः कर्मसु कौशलम् is taken from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 50, and it has been translated by Sri Aurobindo as "Excellence in action is Yoga". On 15 September 1956, the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, 1956 of Parliament received the assent of the President.The Gazette of India No 55, p908 Prime Minister Nehru, in the first convocation address of IIT Kharagpur, said:
The Srinivasa Ramanujan Complex was incorporated as another academic complex of the institute with Takshashila starting operation in 2002, Vikramshila in 2003, and Nalanda in 2012. The erstwhile Hijli Detention camp building, subsequently renamed as the Hijli Saheed Bhavan, hosts the Nehru Museum of Science & Technology and is an imposing building bearing resemblance to the Byzantine style of architecture.
Campus IIT Kharagpur is located west of Kolkata. The campus is located five kilometres away from Kharagpur Railway Station in West Midnapore district. The layout of the present campus and the design of the buildings were carried out by a group of engineers and architects under the guidance of Werner M. Moser, a Swiss architect. The campus is residence to about 22,000 inhabitants. In 2015, IIT Kharagpur had about 605 faculty members, 1,933 employees and approximately 10,010 students living on the campus. The campus has a total of of roadways. The Institute plans to go Green by 2020.
The 22 student hostels are located on either side of Scholars Avenue, which extends from the institute gate to the B. C. Roy Technology Hospital. The three earliest halls—Patel, Azad, and Nehru—together constitute the PAN loop or Old Campus, which is located just next to Scholar's Avenue. There are twelve hostels for undergraduate male students (MMM, LBS, RP, RK, MS, LLR, HJB, JCB, VS, Patel, Azad and Nehru) and two for undergraduate female students (SN/IG and MT). There are post-graduate hostels including four for women (RLB, Gokhle, Nivedita and SAM), two for research scholars (BCR and BRH), and a separate hostel for scholars from the armed forces. The Jnan Ghosh Stadium and the Tata Sports Complex host large-scale sports competitions. The Tagore Open Air Theatre has a capacity of 6,000 people, and is used to host cultural programs. The Science and Technology Entrepreneurs' Park (STEP) provides infrastructure facilities to alumni seeking to start their own corporations.
In addition to the main campus at Kharagpur, the institute has an extension centre at Kolkata to provide venues for continuing education programmes, distance learning courses, and guesthouse accommodation. The Kolkata extension centre at Rajarhat is used to offer some full-time undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The Rajarhat campus houses 2,500 students. The institute's plan for a similar branch campus of in Bhubaneswar was scrapped following rejection by the Union Human Resource and Development ministry.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development on 5 September 2019 awarded the "Institute of Eminence" status to IIT Kharagpur along with four public institution in India, which will enable full autonomy and special incentives.
Academic buildings IIT Kharagpur has 19 academic departments, eight multi-disciplinary centres/schools, and 13 schools of excellence in addition to more than 25 central research and development units. Apart from the main building in the central academic complex, the Srinivasa Ramanujan Complex also has common academic facilities. Takshashila houses the G. S. Sanyal School of Telecommunication, the School of Information Technology, the Computer and Informatics Centre, and has facilities for conducting lectures. The Vikramshila Complex consists of four lecture halls, several seminar rooms, and the 850-seat Kalidas Auditorium. The School of Medical Science and Technology is housed in the basement of the Vikramshila building.
The institute main building houses most of the administrative offices, the lecture halls, and two auditoriums on either side. The signage at the front displays the message, "Dedicated to the service of the nation." The tower of the main building has a steel tank with 10,000 imperial gallons of water capacity for emergency supply needs. The Netaji Auditorium in the main building is used for official functions and events, and doubles as a cinema theatre on weekend nights, showing films to the IIT community at subsidised rates.
IIT Kharagpur's first library was located in a small room of the institute's Old Building (Shaheed Bhawan). At the time of its opening in 1951, the library had a collection of 2,500 books. Now located in the main building of the institute, the Central Library is one of the largest of its type. Its collection includes over 350,000 books and documents, and it subscribes to more than 1,600 printed and online journals and conference proceedings.
The library has six halls and a section exclusively for SC and ST students. The library's collection consists of books, reports, conference proceedings, back volumes of periodicals, standards, theses, micro-forms, DVDs, CD-ROMs, and audio-visual material. The library's transaction service is automated and online searches are possible through an Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). The Electronic Library section has a collection of databases, video lectures and miscellaneous other resources.
The Nehru Museum of Science and Technology has over a hundred indoor exhibits that include technical models collected from institutions across India. The park outside the museum contains 14 open-air demonstrations and outdoor exhibits, including a fighter plane and a steam engine. The museum has an archive room, showing documents relating to the history of the institute and West Midnapore district. The Rural Museum, located in the Rural Development Centre, has a collection of exhibits in local culture.
Civic amenities The institute campus has six guest houses, a civic hospital, four nationalised banks, four schools (Hijli High School, Kendriya Vidyalaya, D.A.V Model School, and St. Agnes Branch School), a railway reservation counter and a police station. The campus has a water pumping station, electrical sub-station, telephone exchange, market, six restaurants, and a garbage disposal section for the daily needs of the residents. Construction is presently going on for another guest house and a convention centre with a 2,000 seating capacity. The institute draws its supply of water from wells near the Kosai river (located 112 kilometres away from institute) by harnessing sub-surface water. Three deep wells near the institute supplement the supply from the river. The water is supplied by a pipeline to 12 tanks in the campus with a total capacity of 2,800,000 litres (615,000 imperial gallons). In 2009, students had expressed dissatisfaction with the level of amenities on campus, especially the civic hospital, forcing the director to resign.
IIT Kharagpur is located just outside the town of Kharagpur, in the village of Hijli. Its civic amenities make it nearly self-sufficient with regards to the basic needs of the residents. As Kharagpur is a small town, there is limited direct interaction between the campus community and the town. There is also little employment opportunities for families of the faculty. Unlike some IITs (such as IIT Bombay), IIT Kharagpur does not restrict the entry of outsiders into the campus. IIT Kharagpur provides much of its benefits to the local community through the Rural Development Centre (RDC) located in the campus. Established in 1975, the RDC helps the local community by developing customised technologies. The RDC also co-ordinates the National Service Scheme (NSS) programs in IIT Kharagpur, with the members of NSS taking part in weekly community service activities such as sanitation, road construction, teaching and building educational models.