Top Engineering Colleges in India – 16 IITs and 30 NITs

In a country where engineering is considered as one of the most sought after branch of study, presence of premier technical institutes becomes crucial. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) collectively form the league of Top Engineering Colleges in India.

There are 16 IITs and 30 NITs in India, which have been given the status of Institutes of National Importance by the Government of India and have a highly selective admission criterion.

The IITs carry out admission on the basis of JEE Mains and JEE Advanced. Top 1.5 rank holders of JEE Mains are further required to appear for JEE Advanced, out of which candidates are shortlisted on the basis of final cut-offs released by the institutes. Whereas for NITs, scores in JEE Mains accompanied by class 12^th marks form the selection criterion for admission.

The premier institutes release their cut offs after the completion of the national level entrance exams. Moreover, the cut-offs are decided independently by each institute.

The old and reputed IITs like IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras have their cut-offs fixed at a higher side whereas the new IITs including IIT Mandi and IIT Jodhpur release comparatively lower cut-offs. Similarly the 30 NITs also have different cut-offs decided exclusively by each of institutes.

Each year world renowned companies like Google, HCL, Infosys and Cognizant visit the apex institutes and hire students in bulk. Moreover, they offer dream salary packages to the deserving candidates; recently one of the final year students from IIT Bombay was offered a salary package of Rs. 1.4 cr by Social networking site Facebook.

With the growing demand of technical courses and the need to match up with world class education in terms of curriculum, research opportunities, practical exposure etc., our country requires establishment of more of such quality institutes. To overcome this, recently HRD Minister Smriti Irani announced the setting up of new IITs in 8 states.

However, the initiative of setting up a set of new IITs is not appreciated by the ministry officials. In their opinion the dearth of quality faculty and insufficient funds acts as a hindrance in the efficient functioning of the new IITs. The new IITs established in 2009 are already facing a tough time because of unavailability resources like land and faculty.

 The officials feel that new IITs should be launched only when all resources are available.