Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

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 8.7-square-kilometre (2,100-acre) 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 – 120 kilometres (75 mi) 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) 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. Prime Minister Nehru, in the first convocation address of IIT Kharagpur, said:

Campus

IIT Kharagpur is located 120 kilometres (75 mi) 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 8.5-square-kilometre (2,100-acre) 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 55 kilometres (34 miles) 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 4-hectare (10-acre) Rajarhat campus houses 2,500 students. The institute's plan for a similar branch campus of 0.81 square kilometres (200 acres) 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.

Organisation and administration

Governance

IIT Kharagpur shares a common Visitor (a position held by the President of India) and the IIT Council with other IITs. The rest of IIT Kharagpur's organisational structure is distinct from that of the other IITs. The Board of Governors of IIT Kharagpur is under the IIT Council, and has 13 members that include representatives of the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, in addition to other members appointed by the IIT Council and the institute's Senate. Under the Board of Governors is the institute Director, who serves as the chief academic and executive officer of the IIT, and is aided by the Deputy Director. Under the Director and Deputy Director are the Deans, Heads of Department, the Registrar, President of the Students' Council, and Chairman of the Hall Management Committee (HMC). The Registrar is the chief administrative officer and oversees day-to-day operations. He is the custodian of records, funds, and other properties of the institute. Under the charge of the heads of departments (HOD) are the faculty (full-time professors as well as those of associate and assistant status). The wardens of hostels are placed under the chairman of the hall management committee in the organisation.

IIT Kharagpur receives comparatively more funding than other engineering colleges in India. While the total government funding to most other engineering colleges is around ₹100–200 million (US$2–4.5 million) per year, IIT Kharagpur gets nearly ₹1,300 million (US$13 million) per year. Other sources of funds include student fees and research funding by industry-sponsored projects. IIT Kharagpur provide scholarships to all MTech students and research scholars to encourage them to pursue higher studies. The cost borne by undergraduate students, including boarding and mess expenses, is around ₹275,000 (US$2,900) per annum. 35% of undergraduate students are given additional financial support based on personal need and economic background, with their annual expenses being nearly ₹64,000 (US$660).

The academic policies of IIT Kharagpur are decided by its senate. It consists of all professors of the institute, and administrative and student representatives. The senate controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations and results, and appoints committees to look into specific academic matters. The teaching, training and research activities of the institute are periodically reviewed by the senate to maintain educational standards.

On June 19, 2025, Suman Chakraborty was appointed as the director of (IIT) Kharagpur.

Academics

Admission to most undergraduate and postgraduate courses in IIT Kharagpur is granted through written entrance examinations. Admissions to M.S. (by Research) and PhD programmes are based on written tests followed by personal interviews.

Admission to undergraduate programmes in all IITs is tied to the Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE). As of 2013, students are required to pass the qualifying JEE Mains examination, followed by the JEE Advanced examination, in order to be admitted to an undergraduate course at an IIT. Candidates who qualify for admission through IIT-JEE apply for admission in one of: a four-year B.Tech. (Bachelor of Technology), a five-year B.Arch. (Bachelor of Architecture), a five-year Dual Degree (integrated Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology), or a four year B.S. (Bachelor of Science) course at IIT Kharagpur.

Admissions to postgraduate programmes (M.Tech.) are granted primarily through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). Other postgraduate entrance exams include the Joint Admission to M.Sc. (JAM) exam for M.Sc., and the Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by IIMs for management studies.

15% of the seats are reserved for students belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC) and 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes (ST). As of 2008, 27% of seats are separately reserved for students belonging to Other Backward Classes.

IIT Kharagpur is a member of LAOTSE, a network of universities in Europe and Asia exchanging students and senior scholars.

Undergraduate education

Some of the undergraduate degrees offered by IIT Kharagpur include the Bachelor of Technology (BTech.Hons) degree, the Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) degree and the 5-year integrated Master of Science degree.

The BTech degree is the most common undergraduate degree in IIT Kharagpur in terms of student enrolment. It is based on a four-year programme with eight semesters. The first year of the BTech curriculum has common courses from various departments. At the end of the first year, an option to change departments is given to students on the basis of their performance in the first two semesters. Like other IITs which evaluate their students on the basis of others' performance IIT Kharagpur also uses relative grading.

From the second year onwards, the students take courses offered by their departments that are known as depth courses. In addition to these, the students take inter-disciplinary courses known as breadth courses. Separate courses from the humanities and social sciences (HSS) department, and management and information technology are also required. At the end of the third year for the BTech and fourth year for the dual degree, students undertake industrial training for a minimum period of eight working weeks as part of the undergraduate curriculum. In the final year of their studies, most students are offered jobs in industries and other organisations through the Training and Placement section of the institute commonly known as Career Development Centre or CDC. Some students opt out of this facility in favour of higher studies or by applying to recruiting organisations directly.

Research

The institute received 171 research revenue worth ₹417 million (US$4.3 million)—and 130 consultancy projects in the 2005–06 session. The institute transferred 15 technologies to industry during the same session. The institute has filed 125 patents and 25 of them have been granted. This does not include patents obtained by individual professors or students. During the same session, the value of the international projects was ₹9.9 million (US$100,000), and the revenue from transferred technologies was about ₹2.5 million (US$26,000). The institute earned ₹520 million (US$5.4 million) from research projects in the 2005–06 session. Major sponsors for research include the Indian Ordnance Factories, Indian National Science Academy, Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Microsoft Corporation, Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (India) and Indian Space Research Organisation. IIT Kharagpur has had a cell known as the SRIC (Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy) cell since 1982. It handles sponsored research projects and industrial consultancy assignments, and has the infrastructure to simultaneously administer 600 R&D projects.

Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research has entered into a collaboration with IIT Kharagpur to carry out research for the design and development of Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs). This is a major development that will boost the second stage of India's nuclear power programme.

In 2026, the institute established the Vikram Sodhi Centre of Excellence for AI-Enabled Geological and Mining Systems, an interdisciplinary research hub focused on applying artificial intelligence to mining and geological systems. The centre was created with a funding commitment of ₹15 crore over five years from Vikram Sodhi, Vice Chairman of Mineros SA and Managing Partner of Sun Valley Investments.

In May 2026, Persistent Systems partnered with IIT Kharagpur to establish an AI Innovation Lab within the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. The facility focuses on developing responsible AI for healthcare, finance, and education. By combining academic research with industrial engineering, the lab aims to foster high-impact innovation and prepare talent for national-scale technological challenges in India.

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