Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (commonly known as IIT Kharagpur or IIT KGP) is an autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institute of higher education established by the Government of India in 1951. The first of the seven IITs to be established, it is officially recognised as an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India and is regarded as one of the best engineering institutions in India. IIT Kharagpur has ranked among the top engineering college in the academic ranking of Indian colleges by various engineering education surveys like India Today, Outlook, etc.
IIT Kharagpur was established to train scientists and engineers after India attained independence in 1947. It shares its organisational structure and undergraduate admission process with sister IITs. The students and alumni of IIT Kharagpur are informally referred to as KGPians. Among all IITs, IIT Kharagpur has the largest campus (2,100 acres), the most departments, and the highest student enrollment. IIT Kharagpur is particularly famous for its festivals: Illumination and Rangoli,Manzar, Spring Fest and Kshitij.
History
With the help of B. C. Roy (then Chief Minister of West Bengal), Indian educationalists Humayun Kabir and Jogendra Singh formed a committee in 1946 to consider the creation of Higher Technical Institutions for post-war industrial development of India. 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 various parts of the country along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 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, B. C. Roy 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". The institute was initially located in Esplanade East, Calcutta, and in September 1950 shifted to its permanent campus at Hijli, Kharagpur located 120 kilometres southwest of Kolkata. When the first session started in August 1951, there were 224 students and 42 teachers in 10 departments of the institute. The class rooms, 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 and executed during the British rule. The office building had served as the headquarters of the Bomber Command of the U.S. 20th Air Force during World War II.
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 15 September 1956, the Parliament of India passed the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act declaring it an Institute of National Importance. Prime Minister Nehru, in the first convocation address of IIT Kharagpur in 1956, said :
“ Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India. ”
The Shaheed Bhawan was converted to a museum in 1990. The Srinivasa Ramanujan Complex was incorporated as another academic complex of the institute with Takshashila starting operation in 2002 and Vikramshila in 2003.
Campus
IIT Kharagpur is located 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Kolkata. The campus is located five kilometres away from Kharagpur's railway station. 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 km² (2,100 acre) campus is residence to about 20,000 inhabitants. In 2006, IIT Kharagpur had about 470 faculty members, 1,933 employees and approximately 5,500 students living on the campus. The campus has a total of 55 kilometres (34 miles) of roadways.The 18 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 seven hostels for undergraduate male students and one for undergraduate female students. Another hostel for women has quite recently been constructed. In addition, there are a few post-graduate students' hostels including two for women and a separate hostel for scholars from the armed forces. The Jnan Ghosh stadium and Tata Sports Complex host large-scale sports competitions. The Tagore Open Air Theatre has a capacity of 3,000 people, and is used to host cultural programs. The Science and Technology Entrepreneurs' Park (STEP) provides infrastructure facilities to alumni who want to become entrepreneurs but lack infrastructure to start their own corporation.
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 institute plans to expand the Kolkata extension centre at Rajarhat, and use it to offer full-time undergraduate and postgraduate courses from the 2008 session onwards.The 10 acre Rajarhat campus will house 2,500 students, and will eventually expand to 250 acres (1 km²). The institute's plan for a similar branch campus of 200 acre (0.8 km²) in Bhubaneswar was scrapped following rejection by the Union Human Resource and Development ministry
Festivals
IIT Kharagpur organises a techno-management festival known as Kshitij.It is biggest techno-management festival of Asia with a total budget of around 50 lakh. An annual techno-management festival organised in January or February, it receives participation from other colleges as well. Events include technical workshops, seminars, and competitions. Robotix, the annual robotics competition held by IIT Kharagpur, is organised during Kshitij. The cultural festival, Spring Fest, is held in January. Spring Fest includes numerous cultural competitions in addition to stage shows (known as Star-nights) by noted singers and performers. The Star-nights are the main attraction of Spring Fest; often more than 10,000 people pack into the Tagore Open Air Theatre, built with a capacity of 3,000 people. The event attracts participation from colleges across India.
Illumination festival, popularly known as Illu, is a festival unique to IIT Kharagpur. It is inspired from the day of Diwali (the festival of lights) and is usually held on the day of Diwali itself. It is held as a competition among student halls.As part of the Illumination festival, all halls build vertical panels of bamboo (called Chatais) on which thousands of lamps (diyas) are mounted forming outlines of people or things; illustrating an event, or a place of importance. The chatais may reach a height of 6 m (20 ft), with nearly 20,000 lighted lamps. The lamps on the chatais are lighted with all other light sources switched off, to showcase the art-panels made by the flickering lamps. On the same day as Illumination, the Rangoli Competition is organised as an inter-hall event.Rangolis of exquisite detail and shading—measuring around 3.5 m (12 ft) long by 3.5 m wide—are constructed using coloured powders, crushed bangles, and pebbles. Interplay of light and shadow and ambient music are part of the display.
External Link:Official website
