National Institutes of Technology (India): Difference between revisions
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==History== |
==History== |
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During the second [[five year plan]] in |
During the second [[five year plan]] in India, a number of industrial projects were contemplated. To ensure enough supply of trained personnel to meet the demand for these projects, it was decided to start Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs), at a rate of one per each major state, which can churn out graduates with good engineering merit. 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. All the twenty [[List of National Institutes of Technology|NITs]] now offer degree courses at bachelors, masters, and doctorate levels in various branches of engineering and technology. The entire non-recurring expenditure and expenditure for post-graduate courses during the REC times were borne by the central government. On the other hand, the entire recurring expenditure on undergraduate courses was shared equally by the central and the state government. However, since being upgraded to NITs, the central government manages the entire funding for these institutes. The REC system served well initially, but as time passed some state governments did not shoulder proper responsibility to steer the institutes in the right direction. Following the long standing demand for more IITs, the then MHRD Minister [[Murli Manohar Joshi]] decided to upgrade the RECs to National Institutes of Technology (NITs). In 2003, all the RECs were upgraded to NITs and the central government took control to run these institutions. The decision to establish NITs was prompted by the following:<ref>[http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/mar/23iit.htm The making of new IITs]</ref> |
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* To establish a second tier of institutes to provide quality education to a large number of students. |
* To establish a second tier of institutes to provide quality education to a large number of students. |
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* To pacify every state demanding an IIT. |
* To pacify every state demanding an IIT. |
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Revision as of 08:54, 5 July 2007
National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are premier colleges of engineering and technology education in India. They were originally called Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs). In 2002, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, decided to upgrade, in phases, all the original 17 Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) as National Institutes of Technology (NITs), on the lines of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). These institutes are rated just next to the IITs in terms of student quality, research, and placements. There are currently 20 NITs, the latest being NIT, Agartala. The Cabinet, at a meeting presided over by the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, approved the proposal to introduce the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) Bill 2006 in parliament to bring 20 such institutions within the ambit of the act. The NITs are deliberately scattered throughout the country in line with the government norm of an NIT in every major state of India to promote regional development. The individual NITs, after the introduction of the NIT Act, have been functioning as autonomous technical universities and hence draft their own curriculum and functioning policies.
History
During the second five year plan in India, a number of industrial projects were contemplated. To ensure enough supply of trained personnel to meet the demand for these projects, it was decided to start Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs), at a rate of one per each major state, which can churn out graduates with good engineering merit. 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. All the twenty NITs now offer degree courses at bachelors, masters, and doctorate levels in various branches of engineering and technology. The entire non-recurring expenditure and expenditure for post-graduate courses during the REC times were borne by the central government. On the other hand, the entire recurring expenditure on undergraduate courses was shared equally by the central and the state government. However, since being upgraded to NITs, the central government manages the entire funding for these institutes. The REC system served well initially, but as time passed some state governments did not shoulder proper responsibility to steer the institutes in the right direction. Following the long standing demand for more IITs, the then MHRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi decided to upgrade the RECs to National Institutes of Technology (NITs). In 2003, all the RECs were upgraded to NITs and the central government took control to run these institutions. The decision to establish NITs was prompted by the following:[1]
- To establish a second tier of institutes to provide quality education to a large number of students.
- To pacify every state demanding an IIT.
- To have a low-cost alternative to IITs.
See also:
Recent changes
Since 2002, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, have upgraded, in phases, all the 17 Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) as National Institutes of Technology(NITs), on the lines of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) as it was decided that these college have immense potential as proved by the success of their alumni and contributions in the field of technical education. Their annual funding has been increased, they have been provided with more working autonomy and have been granted deemed-to be-university status to award their own degrees which has raised the quality value of their graduates in the knowledge sector. This was the result of the recommendations of the High Power 1998 Mashelkar Review Committee. With the flow of more funds NITs are expected to take on IITs to become the best technical institutes. Post Upgradation, all NITs have started showing great improvement in terms of Student Quality, Administration Structure, Placements and Research.
Future
Future looks much brighter than past for NITs. NITs are expected to gain more autonomous powers after the NIT (National Institute Of Technology) Bill is passed which is expected to be implemented from 2007 academic year. NITs still have to walk a long road to become an international destination in technical education. This applies to every university and college in India.NITs need to concentrate on following things to build a stronger brand name for themselves. New age NIT students are expected to take the brand NIT to new heights. For years NITs have been largely ignored by government despite their potential but off late Government realized the need to serve growing demand.
- Regular updation of curriculum which provides flexible options for students and courses promoting entrepreneurship must be added in curriculum.
- Reviewing the state quota system in the interest of student community in order to stop losing some bright students to other colleges.
- Closing gap between NITs and IITs by recruiting quality faculty to serve growing demands and the NIT Bill is expected to give momentum to this. This seems to be the biggest hurdle as teaching in India is not considered lucrative enough as a career and very few opt for it. With the evolution of information technology this problem can be solved to some extent by Video Conferences and Virtual class rooms.
- Building a strong network among all NITs and creating a NIT family and should involve in creative things like collectively publishing a Magazine about various NITs events and happenings.
- Instead of raising voices for IIT status NITs need to build on the current reputation which can surpass IIT brand.
- NITs are not expected to participate in meaningless, biased and over hyped ranking surveys which always present a wrong picture.
- NITs need to ensure that they offer one of the best UG (Under Graduation) programmes in engineering and even strengthen up their PG (Post graduation) programmes to that of global standards.
- Strengthen up the NIT-IIT network to facilitate faculty exchange and knowledge transfer.
- Students should be more choosy while picking up jobs in placement, and should not join mundane regular IT Sector jobs. Students should take up more challenging and innovative jobs which are worthy to their degree, intellectual abilities.
- Encouraging entrepreneurs by creating incubation centres and starting inhouse developments and commercialising student innovations. High MNC salaries can be a hindrance to nurture entrepreneurs in the current scenario and NITs should ensure that the entrepreneur talents should not be distracted away by the MNC cushions.
- For IP (Intellectual property) protection there should be separate department in every Institute to spread and enhance the awareness about IPs among students, Faculty.
- Starting new courses which really serve the purpose of industry, academy like disaster management, Environmental sciences etc and stressing on VLSI, Signal Processing and regularly conducting Seminars, Work shops to educate Professionals and Students.
- Building a common strong global NIT network which should have say in Institute development programmes and Alumni associations are expected to be more active.
- Building a platform where better interaction with the Industry is possible to attract projects from industry and in turn Institute can accommodate students internships, Placements.
- Serving domestic needs like developing innovations to empower Rural Development, Communication at cheaper cost etc.
Vision 2025
The NITs have now come together for the first time, and have defined a common mission for themselves for the next two decades —- producing thinking engineers. A final draft of the ‘NITs Vision-2025’ has already been circulated to the directors of all the 20 NITs for their final approval and will be submitted to the Government of India by August-end.
The Vision-2025 document’s draft has visualised a greater autonomy for the NITs in their functioning and has identified 16 emerging fields like food processing, agriculture, healthcare, nanotechnology and biotechnology as the potential thrust areas on which to focus on in the coming years. These 16 emerging fields will be further clubbed under four major heads for ascertaining the advanced research and experiments needed by the country. This has been done together as the NITs have visualised that the next two decades will be India’s in the field of technology development.
Draft Committee for the Vision-2025 Chairman said that the Vision Document primarily embodied the plan of action, areas of thrust for emerging technologies and scope of NITs in nation-building. According to him that as per the draft prepared by his committee, a generalised structure for the NIT Council and governance had also been spelled out. Under it, the council would have elite representation of eminent educationists, directors of NITs, invited scientists and researchers of international repute, besides senior officials of the Ministry of HRD.
The vision document had for the first time talked about producing ‘thinking engineers’ after realising the fact that despite creating world-class infrastructure, the present system has failed to produce quality engineers having the capability of developing new technologies. These so called thinking engineers envisioned by the NITs would be technically sound persons having the sensitivity for the cause of the nation and also having the zeal necessary for producing indigenous technologies suited for the country. The draft has a detailed description about the various programmes and activities that will be taken up by the institutions during the coming two decades. It also summarises the activities and the projects that will be carried out in the field of resource management, disaster mitigation, entertainment and lifestyle, computer and IT services, material and processing, as well as technology management.
Intranet among NITs (NITNET)
The need for an intranet among the NITs was very strongly felt during the meeting of the Directors held at MANIT Bhopal. Hence an intranet (may be named as NITNET) is conceived. This would nurture research, collaboration and overall academic development in the NITs through inter-institute , interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. In the developed countries especially in USA Internet2 or is the in the place with mbps line among the premiere institutes for online multimedia content sharing.
Initially the NITNET may be implemented as a VPN (Virtual Private Network) through some well established ISP. For that MHRD would be requested to sanction grant of Initial planned grant Rs 1000.00 lakhs Recurring for each Institute per annum Rs 5.00 lakhs Motilal Nehru NIT is constructing a small building to commemorate the golden jubilee of the REC/NIT scheme/movement of Government of India, i e national integration while providing high quality education. The building would have a small museum , a data center a study room 2/3 rooms etc The nodal centre may be housed in this building. Perhaps a room may be used for NIT Directors' Forum. On agreement and fine-tuning the specification and technology MHRD would be requested for the fund.
Administrative structure
The President of India is the ex officio visitor and the most powerful person in the organizational structure of NITs. The NIT Council, which works directly under him, comprises of the minister-in-charge of technical education in Central Government, the Chairmen and the Directors of all the NITs, the Chairman of UGC, the Director General of CSIR, the Directors of other selected central institutions of repute, members of Parliament, Joint Council Secretary of Ministry of Human Resource and Development, nominees of the Central Government, AICTE, and the Visitor.
Following the NIT Council is the Board of Governors of individual NITs. The Director, serving under the Board of Governors, is the chief academic and executive officer of the respective NIT. The academic policies of an NIT are decided by its Senate, which is comprised of all the professors and a few representatives. The Senate controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations, and results. It also appoints committees to look into specific academic matters. The teaching, training, and research activities of various departments of the institute are periodically reviewed to maintain educational standards. The Director of an NIT is the ex officio Chairman of the Senate. Under the Director in the organizational structure is the Deputy Director. The Director and the Deputy Director together manage the Deans, Heads of Departments, Registrar, President of the Students' Council, and Chairman of the Hall Management Committee. Deans and Heads of Departments in NITs are administrative postings and not career paths. Faculty members are posted as Deans and Heads of Departments for a limited period, typically 2–3 years, returning to regular faculty academic duties thenceforth. The Registrar is the chief administrative officer of the NIT and overviews the day-to-day operations. Below the Head of Department (HOD), are the various faculty members (professors, assistant professors, and lecturers). The Warden serves under the Chairman of the Hall Management Committee.
The current composition of the NIT Council consists of the following members:
- Union Minister for Human Resources Development - Chairman
- Education Secretary, Ministry of HRD, GOI
- Principal Adviser (Education), Planning Commission
- Secretary, Deptt. Of Science & Technology, GOI
- Director General of CSIR Labs
- Secretary, Dept. Of Biotechnology, GOI
- Secretary, Atomic Energy, GOI
- Secretary, Dept. Of Information Technology, GOI
- Secretary, Dept. Of Space, GOI
- Spl. Secretary,/Addl. Secretary/Educational Adviser(T), M/o HRD
- Chairman, UGC
- Chairman, AICTE
- Two Chairmen, Board of Governors of NITs (by rotation)
- Four Directors of NITs (by rotation)
- One Director of IIT (by rotation)
- One Director of IIM (by rotation)
- Two Secretaries of Higher/Technical Education from States where NITs are located (by rotation)
- Two persons from Industry nominated by the Central Government
- Finance Adviser, M/o HRD
- Joint Secretary (Technical Education) /Joint Education Adviser (Technical Education), M/o HRD - Member Secretary
The remaining being Members either by selection or rotation
National Institutes of Technology Bill 2006
The text of the NIT Act 2006: [3]
Need for NIT Bill
In India there has been a long standing demand for more number of IITs. But due to the enormous costs and infrastructure involved in creating a new IIT from scratch, the Indian Government decided to upgrade all RECs (Regional Engineering Colleges) to NITs in 2003. After the upgradation, NITs came under a complete control of central government and the government is trying to replicate the IIT system in these institutes.
With Indian technology industry booming like never before, the government has decided to upgrade twenty National Institutes of Technology to full-fledged technical universities. A bill introduced in the Parliament of India shall enable NITs to become centres of excellence like IITs. The target is to fulfill the need for quality manpower in the field of engineering, science, and technology and to provide similar governance, fee structure, and rules in all the NITs.[4] The modified Bill has been passed by both the houses of Parliament and now awaits the President's assent to become an act.
Admission procedure
When all RECs were upgraded to NITs, it was proposed to use the IIT-JEE for admission to the NITs also. However, in view of the larger pool of candidates and the consequent scaling up of operations that would be required, the IITs declined. The admission to undergraduate programs of all NITs is done by the All India Engineering Entrance Examination popularly known as AIEEE. In addition to the NITs, a host of other well known national level reputed institutes like DCE and NSIT (both in Delhi), IIITs , SPA Delhi and BIT Mesra accept students from this examination. The examination is objective by nature and is conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi popularly known as the CBSE which also conducts the well known CBSE-PMT for admission to MBBS courses in medical institutes all over the country. More than 4 lakh students annually appear for the around 7000 seats in the B.Tech and B.Arch (offered by a selected NITs) courses in all the NITs put together.
The admissions into the postgraduate programmes are made through various other exams, like
- Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE)-for admission to M.Tech courses in the various NITs. However these institutes may also conduct a separate individual examination followed by an interview for admission to these courses. It is also planned to introduce dual-degree courses in both science and technology in emerging areas in the forthcoming sessions.
- NITs MCA Common Entrance Test(NIMCET)- for admission to MCA courses offered by the CSE department of respective NIT. As of 2005, this national level exam was attempted at by more than 14,000 candidates for the roughly around 400 seats offered by all the institutes put together and is conducted by a participating NIT every year by a policy of rotation.
- A common entrance examination for admission to the MBA and M.Sc courses offered by some of the NITs has been finalised to be conducted from the academic year. This exam will be on the basis of the highly competitive CAT conducted by the IIMs.
- Separate examinations/interviews are conducted by each NIT for admission to their M.Tech(Research), M.S. by Research and Ph. D programmes.
- Recently Some NITs started granting Research Scholarship in various disciplines and information is available in their respective websites.
Education
National Institute Of Technology(NIT) brand in India is regarded among the premier ones in technical education. Before getting the NIT status from MHRD (Ministry of Human Resources Department) India, the then RECs came under respective state government control. Lesser funds and at times regional politics resulted in lack of direction but, despite the problems NITs have churned out quality graduates who can compete with the best. The student community has started seeing NITs as a quality alternative and NITs do have some of the best students from all states in India. Since REC days, students from these institutes achieved a magnitude of success which is comparable to the best in India. Many of them have become entrepreneurs and have floated their own companies and most of the alumni from NITs occupy key positions in various global corporations.
The reputation of NITs as centres of excellence has gained acceptance in industry as well as in academia as the standard of education and quality of NIT students has been consistently better than most of other colleges in India. This has led to the establishment of a so called brand name for the institutes. Various nationwide educational surveys over the past years rated most of the NITs over other colleges except for the IITs and a select other institutions confirming their eliteness in the field of technical eduction. The various NITs after their upgradation from being a REC now function autonomously, sharing only the entrance tests between them. All the National Institutes Of Technology(NIT)s are going to get more autonomous powers after passing the NIT Bill 2006 in May. The autonomy in education meant that NITs can set up their own curricula and hence make it easier for them to adapt rapidly to the changes in educational requirements.
All the course schedules are divided into semesters with evaluation on the basis of the credits system, with proportional weighting of subjects based on their importance. For each semester, the students are graded on a scale of 0 to 10 based on their performance throughout the semester. Each semester's evaluation is done independently and then the weighted average over all semesters is used to evaluate the cumulative grade point average (known as CGPA or GPA).
The NITs like the IITs are also planning to start a special academic program known as the Dual Degree. It is an integrated graduation and postgraduation program that completes in a total of 5 years rather than 6 years in the conventional BTech degree followed by an MTech. In order to encourage them into research work as is done by MTechs, and by their success in the IITs this integrated program is planning to be introduced as a part of various new courses in NITs. Some NITs already announced their plans to introduce Dual Degree courses from next academic year in the fields like Mathematics and Computing. Some NITs recently started offering Research Scholar Programmes to encourage Research oriented thinking in young minds. Recently IIT-Kanpur started an UG research scholar programme (10 weeks duration in Summer) for IIT-K students as well as all NIT students (sophomore and prefinal year students). It is part of a Quality Improvement programme(QIP) and IITs are really doing a good job to improve the quality of staff in NITs as part of QIP.
Factors behind success
It was the dream of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to see India emerge as a leader in Science & Technology and in order to serve the growing demand for trained quality technical manpower, The Government Of India started 14 RECs between 1959 to 1965 (NITs located at Allahabad, Bhopal, Calicut, Durgapur, Kurukshetra, Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Nagpur, Rourkela, Srinagar, Surathkal, Surat, Tiruchirapally, Warangal).Later 3 other NITs were added between 1970 and 1990. (NITs located at Silchar, Hamirpur, Jalandhar). Recently MHRD issued NIT status to 3 more colleges which are located at Patna(Bihar Engg. College- A 130 year old college),Raipur(Govt. Engineering College)[5] and Agartala(Tripura Engineering College).The NITs are considered fairly successful institutions compared to other engineering colleges in India, behind only the IITs and a select few others according to a number of educational surveys. One of the contributing factors to their success was their autonomous status as RECs under the university system, and after the introduction of the National Institute of Technology Bill (2006), they are expected to become full fledged centres of excellence like the IITs in specialzed areas of engineering, science and technology.
The NIT Act, on lines of the IIT Act, will ensure that the NITs get special privileges. The Bill lays the foundations for them to keep evolving as world-class institutes. The autonomy ensured by the Act will mean that the NITs will be able to implement changes quickly in order to keep up with changing scenario in the academia and the industry in particular and the society in general. Student politics has also been regulated by strictly monitoring the electoral process for the student bodies of these institutes.
Another factor that has contributed to the fresh lease of success of the NITs is the stringent faculty recruitment procedure and their renewed industry collaboration. The procedure for selection of faculty is more stringent compared to most of the other colleges offering similar degrees. Faculty for any post apart from that of lecturers are accepted only if they have a PhD degree and have relevant teaching/industry experience. All the NITs have made Ph.D. degree mandatory for Professor and Asst Prof posts and those who do not meet this criteria are asked to enroll under Quality Improvement Progrmme(QIP) at IITs, IISc. The NITs after their upgradation are having a relatively better interaction with the industry as compared to their REC days and since getting NIT status placements in all NITs have sky rocketed (Booming economy also a factor). But NITs need to make sure that their students should look beyond high paying MNC jobs and turn entrepreneurs.
Student life
All the NITs provide residential facilities to its students, research scholars and faculty inside their campus. The students live in hostels (sometimes referred to as halls) throughout their stay in the NIT. Most of the students have single accommodation though a sizable number of students have to live in double or triple rooms also in their initial years of stay in the campus. Every hostel has its own recreation room which consists Cable television, Magazines, News papers, Indoor Games and provides Internet facilities in all Hostel Rooms. Each hall in NITs have their own mess run by college (In some NITs private).Apart from this all NITs have common canteen for all students and separate canteen for professors. During the vacation generally mess will be closed in all hostels and common canteen serves during this season.
Libraries
All the NITs have their Central Library which have huge collection of Technical books, Literature, Fiction, Scientific Journals and other electronic material. Most of the NITs digitised their libraries for easy indexing. Some NITs providing intranet library also for students. Every department in NIT have High speed Internet apart from departmental Library. The electronic libraries allow student to access online journals and other periodicals through the AICTE-INDEST consortium (IITs, IIMs, NITs are members of INDEST) and all NITs give their students access to IEEE documents, journals to explore more e-learning resources. The NITs also have high-speed LAN and internet connection infrastructure helping students to do their assignments online (whenever applicable) and some even have facilities for video conferencing with the others are catching up to these changes quite fast under the World Bank funded TEQIP scheme. Technical seminars by experts are organized from time to time in all NITs by faculties and researchers from organizations like IITs, IISc, Foreign Universities and Research Labs.
Extracurricular activities
Students In all the NITs have wide otions to participate in extra carricular activities Like National Cadet Corps (NCC), National Service Scheme (NSS), International Society for Technology in Education(ISTE), Annual technical festival and annual celebrations etc. All the NITs have playgrounds of various sports including Cricket, Football, Hockey, Volleyball, Lawntennis,Badminton, Athletics, and Swimming pools (in a few) for aquatic events. Apart from this all the hostels also have their own mini sports grounds.
In all NITs students run various hobby clubs like Linux users Group, Music club, Debate club, Literary club, Web Design team etc. Students also publish campus magazines which showcases the creativity of students and articles written by them. Students conducts Quiz, cultural programmes within the campus. Students also presents their Papers, Innovations by participating in National Level Technical festivals at IITs,NITs,IISc. Almost all NITs are promoting entrepreneurship by creating incubation centers inside campus under the STEP programme but this needs to gain some momentum in order to provide right support to the budding entrepreneurs.
Students also takes active participation in activities of Training and Placement Department(TPD)by directly helping TnP Officer and to boost the placement record. In all NITs TPD consists of student representatives from every stream who takes care of inviting companies for recruitement and also for arranging amenities to the company representatives.
Student elections
Every year all the NITs individually conduct student elections to elect General secretary, Vice president of student body. Generally these people are responsible for communicating with College Management, Media and organising college festivals and also responsible for various development programmes in college. Some NITs recently adopted online voting process. All NITs also made it mandatory that a student body representative should be included in the panel which monitors Funds flow and which suggest ways to invest them in best possible way. This committee also consists of the Chairman of Board, MHRD Representative, Professors of college.
Disciplinary Committee (DISCO)
All NITs have a Disciplinary committee (DISCO) which consists of Director, Student Affairs officer, and some professors to establish a peaceful environment on campus. DISCO regulates student activities and takes strict measures about Ragging and student politics. DISCO needs to submit report to MHRD (Ministry Of Human Resources Development) about campus affairs. After some incidents all NITs are taking strict measures to prevent Ragging in campus and all First year students are well protected during their initial months in campus. All NITs officially arranges Welcome Party, Interaction sessions with Seniors to new joinees to get acquainted with Seniors, Professors.
Inter NIT Sports Meet
Apart from academic activities NIT students also gets good recreation and sports facilities. Every year all NITs compete in Inter-NIT sports meet which is conducted on rotation policy by NITs and apart from this NITs also participate in Inter University sports competitions. During this meet various sports competitions will be held and winners gets cash prizes, trophies. Separate events for boys and girls are organized .Apart from this in February-March time all NITs conduct Intra annual sports meet in respective locations.
College festivals
Every year all NITs conduct Technical/Cultural Festivals which provides a very good opportunity to Student Community to show case their talents and which also enhances College image. During these Festivals many events like Paper presentation, Business Quiz, Online Coding Contest, Robotics Contest etc. are be conducted. Some NITs conducts Online Coding Contests which attracts participants from various leading Multinational Corporations and reputed International Universities from various Countries.A prize in these National level Technical Festivals gives CV (curriculam vitae) a big boost. Apart from Technical Festivals, NITs also conduct Cultural Festivals which gives a platform to budding talents to show case their creative side. During these Cultural Festivals Celebrities are invited to perform and these shows attract students from various colleges. These Festivals generally lasts for 3-4 days and are usually held in Spring season commonly in all NITs. These Festivals attract good amount of support from Corporates in various forms and College Management allocates substantial budget to support these events. These events gives students a platform to showcase their innovations , provides great opportunity to enhance respective college reputation and these events also provides good opportunity to corporates to reach Student community meaning a good brand visibility (A Win-Win Situation for both Industry and Academia).
Alumni
NIT alumni are working in all parts of the globe and many alumni associations exist in cities around the world. However, despite great achievements by NITians, the NIT brand is somewhat downplayed by the Indian media in favor of IITs. But with the newly found NIT status, NITs are no longer expected to keep a low profile. In fact, by 2010, NITs are expected to sit equally with the IIT brand. All the NITs have chalked out vision plans to make the NIT brand stronger.
In most of the NITs, alumni sponsored scholarship programmes provide funding to poor students. However, NIT alumni need to be more active and show more enthusiasm in supporting their alma mater. Some of NITs alumni are working as professors in IITs, IISc, IIMs, NITs, and also abroad in colleges like Stanford and Caltech. Every year, a large number of NIT students carry on their education by joining prestigious institutes like IIMs, ISB, FMS, XLRI, IIFT, SPJIMR, IITs, NITIE, MDI, TISS in India and the likes of Stanford, Georgia Tech, and MIT abroad. Moreover, many former students from NITs occupy key positions in several global corporations.
Uniqueness
Currently, half of the undergraduate student body in any NIT comes from the home state and the other half comes from the rest of India. But this has been a subject of criticism for many years. Nonetheless, all the NITs have students from almost every part of India. Since India is an extremely diverse nation, students come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, speak various languages, wear different dresses, and have peculiar food habits. Such eclectic student body makes each NIT campus a little India in itself. Moreover, since the NIT course structure attracts best students from all corners of the country, the institute provides a perfect platform for young engineers to not only excel technically but also develop interpersonal, leadership, and entrepreneurial skills.
Reservation policy
On 24th May 2006 UPA Government declared new reservation policy for seats in Central Government Institutions by alloting 27% reservation for OBC category students in addition to the present 23% reservation for SC/STs (totalling 50% reserved seats).This will come into act from June 2007 and a bill has been introduced in the monsoon session of Parliamnet. Despite the widespread protests from Student Community, Corporates the UPA Government decided to go ahead with 27% OBC Reservations. UPA Government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh assured the Student Community that no deserving Student will be denied opportunity and asked all the Central Government Institutions Heads to put their insights regarding seats increment
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