The Indian Institutes of Technology

The Indian Institutes of Technology were created as centers of excellence for research and education in engineering and technology. Currently, there are seven campuses of IIT spread across India.

• I.I.T. Bombay
• I.I.T. Delhi
• I.I.T. Guwahati
• I.I.T. Kanpur
• I.I.T. Kharagpur (near Calcutta)
• I.I.T. Madras
• I.I.T. Roorkee

The campus at Guwahati was inaugurated the Fall 1995 semester. Others have been around for at least forty years. The only other institute in India that compares with the I.I.T.s in the quality of technical research and education is the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The I.I.T. at Roorkee used to be the University of Roorkee and was converted to I.I.T. starting the Fall 2001. This is part of the effort by the Department of Education to bring the standards of several regional engineering colleges in India at a par with I.I.T.s. The most cost effective way to do this has been found to be converting them to IITs. People have reacted variously to this decision. Understandably, those in the well established I.I.T. community are generally opposed to this move citing cultural differences between I.I.T.s and other colleges and universities. However, my opinion on this differs a bit.