An international consortium led by MIT helped build India’s first IIT. Seventy years later, an IIT has opened its own campus abroad.
✊ Must Know
1. 1951, 1961, JEE Advanced, and the “Old IITs”
- Overview The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are India’s premier engineering and technology institutes. There are 23 IITs today.
- Link The first IIT, at Kharagpur, was founded in 1951, inaugurated by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. An MIT-led consortium of 13 international universities, under UNESCO, helped set it up.
- Governing Act All IITs are governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961. Each is an Institute of National Importance.
- Admission Admission runs through JEE Advanced, open to students who first qualify JEE Main, followed by JoSAA counselling.
- Old IITs The seven “old IITs” are Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Roorkee, and Guwahati.
- Data 16 of today’s 23 IITs were established between 2004 and 2016, the network’s sharpest expansion.
📘 Good to Know
2. Autonomy, Roorkee’s Age, Overseas Campuses, and NIRF
- Autonomy Each IIT has autonomy in admissions, curriculum, and faculty hiring. All are funded by the central government.
- Data Across all 23 IITs, roughly 18,160 undergraduate seats are filled through JEE Advanced each year.
- Founding IIT Roorkee is India’s oldest engineering institution by founding date. It began in 1847, but only became an IIT in 2001, after functioning for over 150 years as the University of Roorkee.
- Data IIT Madras opened India’s first IIT overseas campus, in Zanzibar, Tanzania, in 2023. IIT Delhi has since set up a campus in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
- Data By NIRF 2025 rankings, IIT Madras placed first among all IITs, followed by IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay.
Test Yourself
Question 1 of 1
💎 Great to Know
3. One 1961 Act, Uneven Institutional Maturity
- Why The “old IITs” versus post-2004 IITs distinction matters beyond trivia. Older institutes generally carry deeper infrastructure, alumni networks, and research output, which is part of why NIRF rankings still cluster the oldest campuses near the top.
- Legal Status A single 1961 Act, extended by later amendments, is what lets a brand-new IIT carry the exact same Institute of National Importance status as Kharagpur. The law standardises status; it doesn’t standardise institutional maturity.
- Link IITs sit within India’s wider higher-education landscape alongside other central institutions. See GK0018 — Universities of India for that fuller landscape, and GK0080 — Education in India for how school policy, higher education, and AI education all connect.
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