National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli

The campus spans 800 acres (3.2 km²) and is one of the largest academic campuses in India. The main entrance is located on the southern end of the campus, facing National Highway 67. There is one other entrance, popularly called the Staff Gate. The institute's academic facilities are located in the southern half of the campus; these include the department buildings, laboratories and workshops, lecture halls, computer centres and the central library. The campus has separate buildings for the departments of nine engineering, architecture, management, computer applications, energy and environment engineering.[25] Each department has its own library, in addition to the central library, which holds more than one lakh resources including books, periodicals and journals in print and electronic format. A new lecture hall complex named as "Orion" was inaugurated in the year 2014 as a part of the institute's golden jubilee campus development plans, and it currently serves for the undergraduate students. The old lecture hall complex which has forty lecture halls is currently used for the academic classes and lectures for first-year undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students.

The administrative building with its clock tower is one of the institute's landmarks. This building houses the administrative offices and also the offices of the director and deans. The eastern and western wings of this building were occupied by the physics and chemistry departments respectively prior to the opening of new building buildings for the same departments in 2016.[26][27]

The Orion is the lecture hall complex for the undergraduate students and consists of twenty-four large lecture halls. Each hall can accommodate around two hundred students and consists of projectors and televisions to make the lectures interactive.[28] The shape of the Orion building is number eight. A decommissioned MIG-23 jet, presented by the Indian Air Force to the institute, is installed near the Orion building.

NIT Trichy has a modern central library with more than two and a half lakh of documents consisting of technical books, reports, standards, compact disks and back volumes of journals. The library subscribes to more than two hundred print periodicals, more than five thousand e-Journals and more than six hundred e-books besides a holding of around eighteen thousand back volumes of journals. The library also contains around two lakh books in the Book Bank scheme. The institute is holding membership with British Council Library, Chennai. They are also holding membership with Developing Library Network, New Delhi and providing Inter-Library Loan services to the users. The library also provides air-conditioned and Wi-Fi enabled reading halls. It is situated opposite to the civil engineering department building. It is considered as the largest library in any NIT campus in India. The building also houses the Centre for Entrepreneurial Development and Incubation (CEDI). The old library building temporarily houses the Indian Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli.[29]

The Octagon is the institute's primary computer centre, with eight computer labs, printing facilities and a variety of engineering software for use by students. The Octagon also serves as a central hub for interconnecting the campus-wide LAN. This LAN caters to totally six thousand users across the campus and has a 10 Gbit/s fibre optic backbone. The original facility, opened in 1990, was extended into the second building in 2006; there are plans to further expand the facility in view of the increase in student enrollment. A brand new computer centre was inaugurated in the year 2016 which houses more than three hundred computers.[30][31]

Residential facilities are provided on campus for students, faculty and staff of the institute. Most students live on campus in the residential hostels. In all, there are twenty-two boys' and five girls' hostels with a capacity of five thousand students. With the exception of the girls' hostel, all the others are located on the northern side of the campus. Meals are served by two mega messes and two government messes along with a pure vegetarian mess located on campus. There are several cafeterias on campus where food is available for purchase. Other amenities on campus include a guest house, a modern hospital, an Apollo pharmacy, an India Post office, State Bank of India and its two ATMs, one Canara Bank ATM, Cafe Coffee day restaurant, Naturals parlor and one supermarket.[32][33]

The institute has a student activity centre (SAC) and is the hub for most of the major extra-curricular activities. The SAC building was inaugurated in the year 2012. The dance, music and the National Cadet Corps groups carry out all their activities at the SAC. It also houses the Café Coffee Day restaurant.[20]

The QS World University Rankings ranked NIT Trichy 251-260 in Asia[34] in 2021 and 126 among BRICS nations[35] in 2019 rankings. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked the institute 1001+ globally[36] and 201-250 among universities of emerging economies[38] in 2020 and 201-250 among universities of Asia in 2020 rankings.[37]

NIT Trichy was declared as an institute of national importance by the Government of India in 2007.[8] In 2015, it was titled as the "Best Industry linked National Institute of Technology in India" by the Confederation of Indian Industry.[44] In 2017, it was named as the "University of the Year" in the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry awards.[13]

The QS World University Rankings ranked NIT Trichy 27 in India in the 2020 ranking.[39] NIT Trichy has been ranked 1 among the National Institutes of Technology for five years in a row in from 2016 to 2020,[45] 9 among engineering institutes[10] and 24 overall[12] in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2020. The Indian magazines such as the Outlook India ranked the institute 8[40] and The Week ranked the institute 10[41] among engineering colleges and institutions in India for the year 2019.

The Department of Management Studies is ranked 35 by National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2020,[11] 47 by Business Today in 2019[43] among top management schools in India. In 2012, the department was named as "Outstanding Business School in South India" in the Bloomberg UTV awards.[46]

The Department of Architecture is ranked 8th in India for architecture in the 2020 National Institutional Ranking Framework rankings.[9]

Research in the institute is sponsored by major government agencies including the Indian Ordnance Factories, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Coal India Limited, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Department of Science and Technology, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Science and Engineering Research Board, Airports Authority of India,[47] Indian Space Research Organisation, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Digital India, etc.[48] NITT also works in collaboration with private industries like Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors,[49] Tata Steel,[50] General Electric, ABB, Pepsico, Bosch and more.[51]

The institute has academic collaboration with the many universities in India and abroad. The collaborative programmes include student and faculty exchange, internship for students and joint research activities. Some of the major universities which have a Memorandum of Understanding with the institute are Indian Institute of Technology, Madras,[52] National Institute of Technology, Surathkal, National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu National Law University,[53] University of Leicester and University of Michigan.[51]

Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Incubation (CEDI) is a Section 25 company registered under section 25 of companies Act 1956, located on the third floor of the Central Library.[54] CEDI will facilitate the incubated companies to access NIT Trichy's common infrastructure facilities, departmental laboratories and other resources of NIT Trichy for their products development purposes. All the necessary mentoring and support for mobilizing funds, creating access to markets, augmenting managerial skills etc., will be provided by the CEDI centre.[55]

CEDI has implemented a project – Technological Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE) funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India aims to enable young entrepreneurs to initiate technology start-up companies for commercial exploitation of technologies developed by them in the areas of information and communication technology and electronics. CEDI has implemented faculty and entrepreneurship development programmes for faculty, students and potential and existing entrepreneurs in the Tiruchirappalli region. These programmes are sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology through the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India. CEDI has also implemented a project on business and management capacity development of rural women entrepreneurs of India and Sri Lanka by The Asia Foundation. University of Jaffna and South Eastern University of Sri Lanka are the Sri Lankan partners. Women Entrepreneurs' Association of Tamil Nadu (WEAT) is the network partner.[56]

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has set up the Space Technology Incubation Centre (S-TIC) at NIT Trichy campus. It is the first of its kind incubation centre in south India which incubates startups to build applications and products in tandem with the industry which would be used for future space missions. The S-TIC brings the industry, academia and ISRO under one umbrella contributing towards research and development (R&D) initiatives relevant to the Indian Space Programme. ISRO has also inaugurated S-TICs at other premier technical institutions such as NIT Agartala and NIT Jalandhar.[57][58]

Engineering

• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Science and Engineering
• Electrical and Electronics Engineering
• Electronics and Communication Engineering
• Instrumentation and Control Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
• Production Engineering

Sciences

• Chemistry
• Physics
• Mathematics

Other major departments

• Architecture
• Computer Applications
• Energy and Environment
• Management Studies

Allied departments

• Humanities and Social Sciences
• Physical Education[59]

The NIT Trichy's Department of Management Studies (DoMS) is one of the oldest business schools in India, started in 1978. It offers a Master of Business Administration programme. They offered Dual specialisation in Marketing, Finance, Business Analytics and IT Consulting, Human Resources and Operations.[60] Unlike the rest of the courses in the institute DoMS follows a trimester pattern with a two-month compulsory internship at the end of the first year.[61]

The institute has three centres of excellence and they are:

• Centre of Excellence in Corrosion and Surface Engineering (CECASE)[62]
• Centre of Excellence in Transportation Engineering (CETransE)[63]
• Siemens Centre of Excellence in Manufacturing (Siemens CoE)[64]
• Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (CoE-AI)[65]

A centre for excellence in manufacturing in collaboration with the German company Siemens was opened in October 2018. There are 12 sophisticated Laboratories for Design and Validation, Advanced Manufacturing, Test and Optimization, Automation, Electrical and Energy savings, Process Instrumentation, Mechatronics, CNC Machines, CNC Controller, Robotics, Rapid Prototyping and Internet of Things which provides an opportunity for promising innovations. This multi-faceted unique centre offers skill development courses, Internships, Research and Development assistance and Industrial consultancy services across various sectors. The centre was built at a cost of ₹190 crores (US$27 million) and was inaugurated by Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on 5 October 2018. The centre's technology partner Siemens rendered 90% of the total cost for it as a grant. NIT Trichy is the only institute in India to have such kind of facility.[66]

Organisation structure of National Institute of Technology

The President of India is the ex officio visitor of all the National Institutes of Technology (NITs). The National Institutes of Technology Council (NIT Council) works directly under him and it includes the minister-in-charge of technical education in Central Government, the Chairmen and the Directors of all the NITs, the Chairman of University Grants Commission (India), the Director-General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Directors of other selected central institutions of repute, members of Parliament, Joint Council Secretary of Ministry of Human Resource Development, nominees of the Central Government, All India Council for Technical Education and the Visitor.[67]

Below the NIT Council is each NIT's Board of Governors. The Board of Governors of each NIT consists of the chairman and ten members, which include government, industry, alumni and faculty representation.[68]

The Director serves under the Board of Governors and is the school's chief academic and executive officer. Academic policies are decided by its Senate, which is composed of some professors and other representatives. The Senate controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations, and results. Senate committees examine specific academic matters. The teaching, training, and research activities of various departments of the institute are periodically reviewed to maintain educational standards. The Director is the ex officio Chairman of the Senate. The Deputy Director is subordinate to the Director. Together they 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 rather than career paths. Faculty members serve as Deans and Heads of Departments for limited periods, typically 2 to 3 years, then returning to regular faculty duties. The Registrar is the chief administrative officer and overviews day-to-day operations. Below the Head of Department, are the various faculty members (professors, assistant professors, and lecturers). The Warden serves under the Chairman of the Hall Management Committee.

Admission to the undergraduate programmes is highly competitive and is based on the rank secured in the Joint Entrance Examination (Main). Candidates must also secure at least 75% marks in the 12th class examination, or be in the top 20 percentile in the 12th class examination conducted by the respective Boards. For Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes students, the qualifying marks would be 65% in the 12th class examination.[69][70] The examination is considered to be one of the toughest examinations in the world and the high school science students who clear the examination with top ranks generally opt NIT Trichy as their first choice for admissions in undergraduate programmes. NIT Trichy follows the reservation policy declared by the Supreme Court of India, by which 27% of seats are reserved for Other Backward Classes, 15% for Scheduled Castes, and 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes. The institute also accepts foreign nationals through scholarships awarded by the Government of India, and non-resident Indians through an independent scheme known as Direct Admission for Students Abroad that uses SAT scores.[71]

Admissions to the postgraduate programmes are through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering for the Master of Technology (M.Tech.) and Master of Science programs (taught and research),[72] and through NIMCET for the Master of Computer Applications (M.C.A) program.[73] Admissions for Master of Business Administration (MBA) program are through the Common Admission Test.[74] Admissions to the Doctorate of Philosophy programmes are based on the written tests followed by personal interviews conducted by the institute.

The institute awards Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) degrees in nine engineering disciplines as well as the Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) degree through its architecture program.[75] As of 2019, the annual intake for the B.Tech. programmes was 1049, with a student-faculty ratio of 25:1.[76]

The B.Tech. and B.Arch. degree programmes are four and five years long respectively. Courses are allotted a number of credits according to their importance. Each academic year is divided into two semesters and teaching programmes are organized around the credit system. Teaching includes lectures, tutorials, practicals, projects, seminars, dissertations, and field and industrial training. The first year of the B.Tech. programme is common across all disciplines, during which students take basic courses in engineering, mathematics and professional communication. From the second year onwards, the students take courses offered by their departments that are known as "depth" courses. At the end of the third year, the B.Tech. and B.Arch. 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 of the students are offered jobs in industries and other organisations through the Training and Placement section of the institute. Some students opt out of this facility in favour of higher studies or by applying to recruit organisations directly.[77]

The institute offers graduate programmes in 23 disciplines, including 21 programmes in science and engineering, leading to a Master of Science (M.Sc.) or Master of Technology (M.Tech.) degree respectively, as well as a program in computer applications (MCA) and management (MBA). Some of the students are admitted in the M.Tech and M.S (by research) courses through the sponsorship of the companies like Larsen and Toubro, Bharat Heavy Electricals limited, and Ashok Leyland.[75]

The Department of Computer Applications offers two full-time post-graduate programmes — three-year Master of Computer Applications (MCA) programme and two-year Master of Science (Operations Research & Computer Applications) programme.[78]

All of the institute's academic departments offer Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) degrees programmes. Admission to the PhD degree programs is either through industry sponsorship or through an entrance exam conducted by the institute. The doctoral research scholars are given a topic by the professor or work on the consultancy projects sponsored by industry. The duration of the programme is usually unspecified and depends on discipline. PhD scholars submit a dissertation as well as to conduct an oral defence of their thesis. Teaching assistantships (TA) and research assistantships (RA) are provided based on the scholar's profile. After the completion of doctoral studies, the candidates are placed in reputed public or private companies and universities. Also, many of the students after finishing their doctoral studies, do post-doctoral fellowships at research labs and universities in India and abroad. The Research Scholars Forum of NIT Trichy works to connect researchers across the globe through rsf.nitt.edu.[75]

Most of the institute's athletic facilities are located in and around the sports centre which includes indoor badminton courts and a fitness centre for men. The Opal hostel, which is the girl's hostel also includes a gym. Adjoining this building are a 25-metre (82 ft) swimming pool and an outdoor stadium with a 400-metre (1,300 ft) track, which is also used as a cricket field. Other facilities on campus include basketball courts and indoor table tennis tables in the residential hostels. A new indoor sports arena with international standards near to the basketball court was inaugurated in 2014. In 2017, two lawn tennis courts have been built near to basketball court.[79]

NIT Trichy has over 35 student groups spanning a variety of interests, including cultural, social and professional groups, student publications and recreational groups. Undergraduate students participate in one of three national programmes in their first year: the National Cadet Corps, the National Sports Organisation or the National Service Scheme.

The college is a host to many academic societies both national and international. These societies organize several workshops, seminars and guest lectures by eminent personalities in their respective fields, from time to time. They are also responsible for providing opportunities for students to take part in various international events too. The academic society includes IEEE, ACM, ISA and SAE.[80]

The two very popular computing groups are the Delta Force and Spider. The Delta Force is an active group of developers and programmers who are responsible for the maintenance of the institute website and the development, administration, and updating of most of the content on the institute intranet. The Spider group offers various services such as organizing various courses (c language, web designing etc.), blog hosting, providing short message services and now even the facility to check train reservation status.[81]

The science groups include Robotics and Machine Intelligence (robotics club), The Third Dimension Aero-Modelling (mechanical and aero-modelling club), Builder's Hive (Civil Engineering Club), Nakshatra (astronomy club), Phyxion (physics education club), Maximus (mathematics education club) and Pure Science Initiative (pure science education and research club). These groups also organize competition events and workshops with the robotics club standing out as an inspiration to the others.[82]

The architecture Group includes ASA - Association of students of architecture, it is a student body which brings guest lecturers, conduct events and workshops. it is also conducting 'ArchCult', the symposium of Department of architecture.

The fine arts groups include the Dance Troupe (dance club), Music Troupe (music club), Thespians' Society (drama club) and Amruthavarshini (Carnatic music club). These groups have won various awards in different national level inter-college competitions such as in IITs, IIMs, NITs and other top institutes in India.[83]

There are several Language Clubs which cater to the needs of native speakers such as Aayaam (The Hindi Club of NIT Trichy)[84] which conducts many Literary events in all major college fests, the flagship event "Umang" conducted every year for the celebration of "Hindi Divas", It also organizes "Dandiya Night" during Navratri and publishes a yearly magazine called "Pratibimb", It also organizes Hindi learning classes for non-Hindi speakers who show a keen interest in learning the language. Other groups include Tamil Mandram (Tamil language promoting club). As the name suggests, this club plays a very important role in promoting Tamil amongst the students by organizing various programs, Tamil events in cultural festivals and also book fairs where classics are available at subsidized prices. Akshara (Telugu language club) organizes many events and promotes spirit of diversity.[85]

Institute's four official annual events, Festember, Nittfest, Pragyan and Sports Fete are organised by the students themselves. These are also the largest and most-awaited events every year. Festember and Pragyan are considered to be one of the largest cultural and technical college events respectively in India. These events also receive sponsors from various large companies in India.

Festember is the annual national-level cultural festival of the institute. Held every year since 1975 during the month of September, this event encompasses music, dance and literary competitions, with thousands of participants from colleges all over the country vying for the trophy. The event has seen performances by Indian musicians including Karthik, Srinivas, Naresh Iyer, Kadri Gopalnath, Sivamani and Benny Dayal as well as bands like Indian Ocean, Euphoria and Silk Route.[86][87] 'ProNites' or 'ProShows', Festember's most anticipated events, usually form the grand finale after the valediction ceremony. Also on the agenda are the various literary competitions split up between English, Hindi and Tamil, along with the cultural and arts events. Festember derives its name from the phrase, "A Fest to Remember" and not from "A-Fest in September" as is popularly believed due to its falling in the month of September every year.[88]

Laser show during Pragyan 2012

Pragyan, the ISO 9001 & 20121 certified annual international techno-management organization of the NIT Trichy, ever since its inception in 2005, has served as a golden platform that attracts brilliant and innovative minds every year from nearly 100 colleges across the country to come and showcase their technical and managerial prowess. Since then it has broadened its horizon and forayed into the international arena by bagging the credit of being the first student-run organization in the world to get an ISO 20121:2012 certification for Sustainable Event Management and also by organizing online programming contests that attracts participation from 60 countries. It has more than 47 events spanning across eight genres. The guest lecture series, every year, sees eminent and famous intellectuals from all walks of life ranging from Marshall Strabala (studio architect of “Burj Khalifa”) to Tessy Thomas (Project Director of Agni-IV missile) to Jeff Lieberman (host of the show Time Warp on Discovery Channel) to Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia).[89]

Nittfest is the annual inter-departmental cultural competition of the institute. It is usually conducted in March or generally before Pragyan. During Nittfest, departments square off against each other over four days to battle over various events like quizzes, debates, music, dance, drama, gaming, art etc.[90]

Sports Fete is the annual inter-departmental sports competition of the institute. It is usually conducted in September. The competition is among the departments competing in various indoor and outdoor sports. Events like athletics, football, cricket and hockey have more points to score. The department with the highest total points wins the Sports Fete trophy. The Mechanical Engineering Department has won the most titles, beating the Computer Science Department by a marginal difference.[91]

Every academic department of NIT Trichy conducts a symposium every year which is a kind of technical festival. Spread over two days, the symposiums usually include paper presentations, guest lectures, workshops and various other events pertaining to the central theme each department has decided on for the year.

The symposiums conducted by the various academic departments are Alchemy (chemical engineering), Archcult (architecture), Bizzdom (management studies), Currents (electrical and electronics engineering), Inphynitt (Physics), Mettle (metallurgical and materials engineering), Moments (civil engineering), Probe (electronics and communication engineering), Prodigy (production engineering), Sensors (instrumentation and control engineering), Synergy (mechanical engineering), Version (computer applications), Vortex (computer science and engineering).[92]