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.[26] 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.[27][28]

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.[29] 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. The building also houses the Centre for Entrepreneurial Development and Incubation (CEDI). The old library building temporarily houses the Indian Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli.[30]

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.[31][32]

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.[33][34]

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.[35]

The institute has 17 departments.[7]

The NIT Trichy's Department of Management Studies (DoMS) is one of the oldest business schools in India, started in 1978 and offers MBA programme. They offered Dual specialisation in Marketing, Finance, Business Analytics and IT Consulting, Human Resources and Operations.[36] Unlike the rest of the courses in the university, DoMS follows a trimester pattern with a two-month compulsory internship at the end of the first year.[37]

Organisation structure of National Institute of Technology

The President of India is the ex officio visitor of all the NITs. The Council of NITSER (formerly NIT Council) works directly under the president 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, 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 Education, nominees of the Central Government, All India Council for Technical Education and the Visitor.[38]

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.[39]

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 two to three 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.

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 discipline. The B.Tech. and B.Arch. degree programmes are four and five years long respectively.[41]

Admission for Indian candidates to the undergraduate programmes is highly competitive and is based on the rank secured in the Joint Entrance Examination – Main (JEE Main)[42] and selection through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA)[43] and Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB).[44] To be eligible for admission in the undergraduate programmes, the candidates in the general category have to secure at least 75% marks or be in the top 20 percentile and the candidates in the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) category have to secure at least 65% in the 12th class examination conducted by the respective Boards. The JEE Main 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.[45][46] Admission for Foreign Nationals, Children of Indian Workers in the Gulf Countries (CIWG), Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs), Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) in the undergraduate programmes is based on the rank secured in the JEE Main and selection through the online portal of Direct Admission of Students Abroad (DASA).[47][48]

The institute offers 40 master's programmes, which include 23 programmes leading to Master of Technology (M.Tech.) degrees, 9 programmes in engineering leading to Master of Science (by research) degrees, 4 programmes in science and computer science leading to Master of Science (M.Sc.) degrees and a programme in architecture, arts, computer applications and business leading to Master of Architecture (M.Arch), Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Computer Applications (MCA) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) respectively.[41]

To be eligible for admission to the postgraduate programmes, the candidate has to secure a minimum percentage or CGPA set by the institute or admission authorities of the government of India in the qualifying degree from a university or an institute recognized by the Association of Indian Universities or similar Indian body.[49] Admission to the M.Tech. and M.Arch. programmes is based on the merit list prepared by the Centralized Counseling for M.Tech./M.Arch./M.Plan./M.Des. (CCMT) on the basis of Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) scores as well as selection through CCMT online portal.[50][51] Admission to the M.Sc. programmes is based on the merit list prepared by the Centralized Counselling for M.Sc./M.Sc.(Tech.) (CCMN) on the basis of the ″Common Percentile″ (calculated from the Joint Admission Test for Masters (JAM) Rank) and selection through the CCMN online portal.[52][53] Admission to the MCA programme is based on the rank secured in the NIT MCA Common Entrance Test (NIMCET) and selection through the NIMCET online portal.[54] Admission to the M.A. programme is through the interview conducted by the institute.[55] Admission to the MBA programme is through the rank secured in the Common Admission Test[56] and personal interviews conducted by the institute.[57] Applicants interested in seeking admission to the postgraduate programmes who are foreign nationals, PIOs, OCIs who have completed undergraduate programme in any country (including India) or Indian nationals who have completed their undergraduate programme outside India or Indian nationals who have acquired NRI status and holding it for the last three years after obtaining undergraduate degree from India or Indian nationals who have completed undergraduate programme in any centrally funded technical institute (CFTI) under the DASA Scheme or Indian nationals who have completed undergraduate programme in India but have completed their 11th and 12th standard (or equivalent) from outside India, are requested to check the admission details in DASA and institute websites.[49][58]

The institute also offers 17 Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) degrees programmes. Admissions to the PhD programmes are based on written tests followed by personal interviews conducted by the institute. The doctoral research scholars are given a topic by the professor or work on the consultancy projects sponsored by the industry. Teaching assistantships (TA) and research assistantships (RA) are provided based on the scholar's profile.[59]

The QS World University Rankings ranked NIT Trichy 251–260 in Asia[60] in 2021 and 126 among BRICS nations[61] in 2019 rankings. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked the institute 1001–1200 globally,[62] 301-350 among universities of emerging economies[64] and 251-300 among universities of Asia in 2021 rankings.[63]

NIT Trichy was declared an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India in 2007.[70] In 2015, it was titled the "Best Industry-linked centrally funded technical institution in India" by the Confederation of Indian Industry.[71] In 2017, it was named the "University of the Year" in the FICCI awards.[15]

The QS World University Rankings ranked NIT Trichy 27 in India in the 2020 ranking.[65] The NIRF ranked the institute 1 among the NITs for six years in a row from 2016 to 2021,[9][10] and 23 overall in India[14] in 2021.

Among engineering colleges and institutions in India, the NIRF ranked the institute 9 in 2021, and the Indian magazines such as Outlook India and The Week ranked the institute 8[66] and 10[67] respectively in 2019.

Among the business schools in India, the Department of Management Studies is ranked 48 by NIRF in 2021,[13] 47 by Business Today in 2019.[69] In 2012, the department was named "Outstanding Business School in South India" in the Bloomberg UTV awards.[72]

The Department of Architecture is ranked 7 by NIRF among the architecture schools in India in 2021.[11]

NIT Trichy 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 Bombay, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu National Law University, University of Michigan and Ufa State Aviation Technical University.[73]

The institute has the following centres of excellence:

• Centre of Excellence in Corrosion and Surface Engineering[77]
• Centre of Excellence in Transportation Engineering[78][79]
• Centre of Excellence in Manufacturing[80]
• Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence[81]
• Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Automation[82]
• Space-Technology Incubation Centre[83]

The centre for excellence in manufacturing was opened in October 2018 in collaboration with the German company Siemens. The centre has 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. The 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.[84]

The Space Technology Incubation Centre (S-TIC) was set up by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at NIT Trichy campus in June 2019. The centre incubates startups to build applications and products in tandem with the industry which would be used for future space missions and it is the first of its kind incubation centre in south India. The S-TIC brings the industry, academia and ISRO under one umbrella contributing towards research and development initiatives relevant to the Indian Space Programme.[85][86]

Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Incubation (CEDI) is an independent company promoted by NIT Trichy. CEDI was founded in 2012 and registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act. CEDI facilitates 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 and augmenting managerial skills are provided by the CEDI centre.[87][88]

CEDI has implemented a project – Technological Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE) funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, which 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 communications technology and electronics.[89] 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.[90]

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.[91]

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.[92]

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.[93]

The hobby groups include RMI, Vox Lumos, Cinema Paradiso and PSI.[94] The RMI (Robotics and Machines Intelligence) is the on-campus robotics group, primarily involved in the development of robotics enthusiasm amongst the students. The group is responsible for holding workshops and organizing competition events in electronics.[95]

The fine arts groups include the Dance Troupe (dance club), Music Troupe (music club), Thespians' Society (drama club) and Visual Arts Club. These groups have won various awards in several events conducted in different colleges held around the country.[96]

There are several Language Clubs which cater to the needs of native speakers.[97] Aayaam (The Hindi Club of NIT Trichy) 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.[98] Tamil Mandram (Tamil language promoting 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.[99]

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.[100][101] '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.[102]

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).[103]

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.[104]

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.[105]

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).[106]