Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur or IIT KGP) is a public technical and research university established by the government of India in 1951. It is the first of the IITs to be established and is recognised as an Institute of National Importance. In 2019 it was awarded the status of Institute of Eminence by the government of India.[5]
The institute was initially established to train scientists and engineers after India attained independence in 1947. However, over the years, the institute's academic capabilities diversified with offerings in management, law, architecture, humanities, etc. IIT Kharagpur has an 8.5 square kilometres (2,100 acres) campus and has about 22,000 residents.
History
Foundation
In 1946, a committee by Sir Jogendra Singh, Member of Viceroy's executive council, to consider the creation of higher technical institutions "for post-World War II 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 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.[6]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.[7] It was located in Esplanade East, Calcutta, and in September 1950 shifted to its permanent campus at Hijli, Kharagpur 120 kilometres south-west of Kolkata (formerly called Calcutta). Hijli had been used as a detention camp during the British colonial rule in India, to keep Indian freedom fighters captive.[8]
IIT Kharagpur is the 4th oldest technical institute in the West Bengal state after Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology Shibpur (established as B.E. College in 1856), Jadavpur University (established as 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 British rule.[9] The office building had served as the headquarters of the Bomber Command of the U.S. 20th Air Force during World War II.
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