National Institute Of Technology, Durgapur - Lkd Aerospace

The National Institute of Technology Durgapur also known as NIT Durgapur or NITD, is a Central Government engineering college located in Durgapur, West Bengal, India. Formerly known as the Regional Engineering College, Durgapur (REC Durgapur), it is among the first 8 Regional Engineering Colleges established in India and was founded in 1960 by the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy. Today it is one of the 30 National Institutes of Technology in India and has been recognised as an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India under the National Institutes of Technology Act, 2007. According to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), the institute is ranked 30 in the 2016 engineering university rankings.

History

In order to serve the growing demand for trained technical manpower, the Government of India started 14 RECs between 1959 and 1965 (NITs located at Allahabad, Bhopal, Calicut, Durgapur, Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Kurukshetra, Nagpur, Rourkela, Srinagar, Surathkal, Surat, Tiruchirappalli, and Warangal).

The National Institute of Technology, Durgapur (formerly Regional Engineering College, Durgapur) was established in 1960 under an Act of the Parliament of India as one of the eight such colleges, as a co-operative venture between the Government of India and the Government of West Bengal aimed to function as a pace setter for engineering education in the country and to foster national integration. It is a fully funded premier Technological Institution of the Government of India and is administered by an autonomous Board of Governors. The college was given autonomy in financial and administrative matters to achieve rapid development.

In 1998, a review committee "High Powered Review Committee (HPRC)" was set up by the Union Government for review of RECs. The HPRC, under the chairmanship of Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, submitted its report entitled "Strategic Road Map for Academic Excellence of Future RECs" in 1998. Following the recommendations of HPRC, in 2002, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India upgraded, all the 17 Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) to National Institutes of Technology (NITs). In July 2003, the institution was granted Deemed University status with the approval of the UGC/AICTE and was renamed National Institute of Technology, Durgapur.

On 5 June 2007, the Parliament of India passed the National Institutes of Technology Act declaring it an Institute of National Importance which came in effect on Independence Day 2007.

In 2010, NIT-Durgapur celebrated its Golden Jubilee (completing 50 years).

Academics

NIT Durgapur offers graduate and undergraduate programs in engineering, science and management. The institute has 16 departments and all of them are involved in active research which are mostly sponsored by major government agencies including Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

Education facility

The institute has a best-voltage laboratory, the best of its kind in the world and the first in India. There are specialised faculty members and skilled staff members in the fields of high-voltage and high-power engineering.

The institute possesses state-of-the-art computing facilities. The Institute has a computer centre as a central computing facility for the students, scholars and the teachers of the institute. The centre has infrastructure like computer hardware and software, air-conditioned space, stabilised uninterrupted power supply and trained technical manpower. In addition, the institute has developed two laboratories that train students in computer-aided design. Each academic department has its own computer laboratory with PCs and workstations running specialised engineering and scientific packages like MATLAB, AUTOCad, STADD, IDEAS, PSpice, ANSYS, AFS, Sybase and PowerBuilder.

The whole institute is connected by a campus wide LAN using high speed Fibre Optic/UTP cables. The LAN is managed by High Level Switches and a host of Servers. In addition to this, the Administrative Offices and the Library have separate local networks running Windows Server. The Library is fully computerised using LibSys software. The Institute has a dedicated 54 Mbit/s (34 Mbit/s BSNL+ 20 Mbit/s Reliance Comm) 24X7 Internet Connectivity, which serves the Institute Internet needs.

The computer science department has a CISCO lab in collaboration with CISCO.

On 17â€"20 February 2011, the Civil Engineering department (in association with Lund University, Sweden) organised an International Conference on Water Resources & Adaptation to climate changes. In November 2010, the Chemical Engineering department organised another international conference on Computation, Modelling and Optimization.

Departments

The listed departments help the students through their academic courses and awards graduate and post graduate diplomas to the students.

• Biotechnology
• Chemistry
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Application
• Computer Centre
• Computer Science Engineering
• Earth and Environmental Studies
• Electronics and Communication Engineering
• Electrical Engineering
• Information Technology
• Mechanical Engineering
• Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Management Studies
• Humanities

Placements

The training and placement department of the institute arranges for companies to conduct on-campus interviews to recruit students. 97 companies participated in the placement process for the academic year 2011â€"2012. Foreigners are not allowed to sit for any placement related activity here (Effective from 2012).

Library

The Library as one of the important central facilities of the Institute supports the study, teaching, research and development programmes of the Institute. It is housed in a separate building having 3 floors on a plinth area of 1000 m². The library has a collection of 1.5lac volumes which includes text books, reference books & bound volumes of journals, standards etc. and subscribes to about 180 current journals. The book database is accessible through OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue). Library operations have been automated with the help of an integrated library software package, LIBSYS-4. Circulation Services are executed through Barcode System. The book database is accessible through OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue).

Circulation services are executed through barcode system. It has a good collection of Electronic resources in its Digital Library. It is an open access library and remains open from 8:30 a.m. to 09:30 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sundays. Wi-fi Internet facility has also been introduced inside it to facilitate freeflow of information to the users.

It has also a good IT infrastructure. It has also some audio-visual equipment like colour TVs, VCPs, video camera, direct projectors, and multimedia projectors etc.

The library is an institutional member of DELNET (Developing Library Network), American Center Library, Kolkata, NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning), and Current Science Association, Bangalore. It is also a beneficiary Member of INDEST-AICTE (Indian National Digital Library in Engineering, Science & Technology) Consortium, which provides Desktop Access to high quality e-resources (online journals) like IEL Online (IEEE/IEE Electronic Library), Springer Verlag’s Link, Proquest, ACM journals, ASCE, ASME, Nature Magazine, Indian Standards (Intranet version)and ASTM journals & Standards etc. It has a good collection of learning resources. It has also a collection of several thousand E-Books on computer science (Published by Springer).

Research and collaboration

Professors, scientific officers and students of this institute publish many of papers in journals of international repute from publishers like IEEE, Elsevier, Springer-Verlag, Taylor & Francis etc.

In November 2010, the Chemical Engineering department organised an international conference on Computation, Modelling and Optimization.

In 17â€"20 February 2011, the Civil Engineering department of the Institute (in association with Lund University, Sweden) organised another international conference on Water Resources & Adaptation to climate changes.

Every year, a batch of 4 academically excellent students, who have just completed their 6th semester, selected across all departments by an internal panel are sent to CERN, Geneva, to pursue research work there.

In October 2015, the Chemical Engineering department organised an international conference on Recent Developments in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering.

Ranking

According to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), the institute is ranked 30 in the 2016 engineering university rankings.

Administration

Organisational structure

NIT Durgapur shares a common Visitor (a position held by the President of India) who is the most powerful person in the NIT organizational structure and the NIT Council with the other sister NITs.

The rest of NIT Durgapur's organisational structure is distinct from that of the other NITs. The Board of Governors of NIT Durgapur is the highest body in the administrative setup of the Institute under the NIT Council. It is headed by Prof. Bikash Sinha, the former director of VECC and Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, and has 12 members that include representatives from the state and central governments, the university, All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), Indian Institute of Technology, industry and the Faculty of the Institute.

Under the board of governors is the institute's director, Prof. (Dr.) Asok De, who serves as the chief academic and executive officer of the institute. He is aided by the deputy director. Under the director and the deputy director are the deans, heads of departments, registrar, president of the students' council, and chairman of the hall management committee.

The registrar, Brig. A S Nijjar is the chief administrative officer and oversees day-to-day operations. He is the custodian of records, funds, and other properties of the institute.

Under the charge of the heads of departments (HODs) are the faculty (full-time professors as well as those of associate and assistant status). The wardens of hostels are placed under the chairman of the hall management committee in the organisation.

Financing

The Institute receives funding of about Rs.500 million per year from the Government of India. It is the first institute in Eastern India to be selected as a Lead Institute under the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP) of the Government of India funded by the World Bank. Research in the institute is sponsored by government agencies including the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT). NIT Durgapur subsidises undergraduate student fees by approximately 80% and provide scholarships to all M.Tech. students and research scholars to encourage them to pursue higher studies.

Academic policies

The academic policies of the institute are decided by its senate. It consists of all professors of the institute, and administrative and student representatives. The senate controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations and results and appoints committees to look into academic matters. The teaching, training and research activities of the institute are reviewed by the senate to maintain educational standards. The director serves as the ex-officio chairman of the senate.

NIT Durgapur follows the credit-based system of performance evaluation, with proportional weighting of courses based on their importance. The total marks (usually out of 100) form the basis of grades, with a grade value (out of 10) assigned to a range of marks. For each semester, the students are graded by taking a weighted average from all the courses with their respective credit points. Each semester's evaluation is done independently with a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) reflecting the average performance across semesters. The medium of instruction is English.

Campus

The institute is located about 161 km north-west of Kolkata on the Howrah-Delhi railway route, overlooking the Grand Trunk Road (NH-2), covering 187 acres (0.8 km²) of land.

NIT Durgapur enjoys one of the best academic ecosystems as this institute falls under India's richest educational belt, consisting of IIT Kharagpur, IISER-Kolkata, Marine Engineering and Research Institute (MERI) Kolkata, Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI) Durgapur, Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, Jadavpur University Kolkata, National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics Kolkata, Calcutta University, University of Burdwan, Presidency University, Kolkata, St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, Visva-Bharati University and many other leading Research Institutes which are located in and around Kolkata.

Student life and amenities

There are many facilities for the students to engage themselves in extra-curricular activities. The Institute has a full-fledged Physical Training Department for the students. Students are trained in various sports and games by well experienced and qualified coaches arranged by the Department of Physical Training. Two playing grounds â€" (the Lord's and the Oval) are for outdoor activities like cricket, football and hockey. There are courts for volleyball, basketball and lawn tennis. There is a badminton court present in each hostel. A number of fests are held both in the odd and the even semesters. Cricket, football, badminton, table tennis, lawn tennis, basketball and volleyball are the common sports activities that keep the students busy. Besides the indoor game facilities available in the student hostels, there stands a Student Activity Centre, which includes an indoor auditorium and a gymnasium with latest equipment. The auditorium provides table tennis and badminton f acilities. Every year, inter-college cricket and football tournaments are organised. Students also participate in various sports and games competitions elsewhere. The students run many hobby clubs, including a photography club, music club, dance club and an Enteract club. The institute organises its annual cultural festival, Recstacy, every year and various inter-college cultural competitions are also organised.

The students publish literary and technical articles in an annual magazine. To motivate the students in social services, the institute has a unit of the National Service Scheme (NSS). The students of this unit render social services in the nearby rural areas.

There is a medical unit-cum-hospital with arrangement for both indoor and outdoor treatment of the patients. The medical unit is served by two resident doctors and other medical staff around the clock. For any specialised treatment the patients are referred to the state government hospital situated at the other end of the city or another advanced medical centre.

A number of stationery shops are spread throughout the campus. There is a shopping complex within the campus which allows the students to cope up with all their daily necessities. There are a number of eateries distributed throughout the campus. The college also has two State Bank of India ATM machines along with a State Bank of India and a Canara Bank branch inside the campus

Accommodation

National Institute of Technology, Durgapur is a residential Institute. There are nine hostels for boys and three hostels for girls to accommodate the about 5000 boys and 2500 girls students. The canteen for the students and the staff is located near rear exit of the main academic building of the Institute.

The most of the teachers and the staff members reside in the residential quarters provided by the Institute. A modern Guest House beside the Director's Bungalow extends hospitality to the guests of the Institute. It is a double storied building with modern living facilities overlooking a garden and tall sal trees all around. The guests of faculty members and students are also accommodated there with advanced booking as per availability. In the middle of the residential area there is a Shopping Complex. Branch offices of two nationalized banks State Bank of India and Canara Bank are there in the campus, both near the main academic building. A Post office is also there within the Institute Campus.

Halls of residence

In NIT Durgapur, students' hostels are called Halls of Residence. Each Hall of Residence is well equipped with gigabit internet facility, water purifier cum cooler, fooding mess (with separate vegetarian and non-vegetarian food distribution). From 2014 Hostel accommodation is compulsory for Undergraduate students. For Post Graduate students, hostel accommodation is optional.

Student activity

Festivities

Recstacy, popularly known as RECS, is the school's annual social and cultural festival. It is held for 4 nights and 3 days near the end of February. It draws a footfall of about 8,000 students from colleges across the country.

Aarohan is the Annual National Techno-Management festival organised by the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, West Bengal, India. Aarohan is organised during even semesters and lasts for four days. It is aimed at technical, arts as well as management students by offering a plethora of events, including lectures, seminars, workshops, competitions, paper presentations, exhibitions, quizzes, model displays and robotics events.

Other fests include Verve, The Quizzitch Cup, Motor Zundung, Ank, Mukti and Virasat.

Center for Cognitive Activities

Centre for Cognitive Activities, is the focal point where convergence of all technical, scientific and entrepreneurial endeavours of the students materialises. As the technical gymkhana of the institute, this club is the revolution which bridges the gap between knowledge and application. Bulk of the extracurricular activities held in the college all the year round are organised by the CCA, with the objective of probing the dark recesses of human mind so that the grey cells are stimulated to create, conceptualise and evolve, triggering a rebellion of the new age mind against baseless conventions and meek acceptance. It organizes Aarohan.

Center for Application Development

Center for Application Development (CAD) is the indigenous students’ activity club of Computer Application department founded in 2011. It engages in technical activities like seminars, TechTalk classes, orientation camps, workshops throughout the year. The club comprises post graduate students. Technoshine is the annual technical fest organized by the CAD team, which is dedicated to various technical and general events. The technical events include CodeWar, Codezip, Total Chaos, Trickology,Socket Combat, Gadget Guru, Robotics and the general events include Inspire India, Nethunt, JustClick, Tattoo Making, Brain Marathon, Treasure Hunt, Performer of the Year Technoshine X.5 was held from 3 to 5 October 2015 with large number of registrations including off campus participants. Treasure hunt was the new event included in Technoshine X.5 which was sponsored by the Inklings Club and turned out to be a huge success. Now the wait is on for Technoshine X.6 which is going to be bigger an d better. It is going to take place from 23 to 25 September 2016 with more exciting events. This time it will be solely based on the theme ‘Comics’ and is going to include a new event “The Black Box” which is a surprise still to be unveiled.

TEAM NDORS

Team NDORS (NIT Durgapur Off-road sports) is the official SAE BAJA team of NIT Durgapur under the banner of SAE Durgapur chapter. Baja SAE is an intercollegiate design competition run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Teams of students from universities all over the world design and build small off-road cars. The cars all have engines of the same specifications.The team is supervised by professors of Dept of Mechanical Engineering.

NSS (National Service Scheme)

NSS is a society which strives to inculcate good social habits among the students. Its activities include cleaning of the campus, spreading awareness about the environment, visits to nearby slums to improve empathy towards the deprived classes, organising Blood Donation Camps.

Admissions

As decided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, the procedure for selection of candidates for admission to the bachelor's degree Courses in Engineering/Technology in National Institute of Technology, Durgapur undergraduate courses are highly competitive, through the [JEE MAIN], conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi, and the same is executed through counselling by Central Seat Allocation Board, JEE MAIN under guidance from MHRD, GOI as per schedule notified by CSAB. In addition to the normal intake, a few seats are reserved for Foreign Students who are nominated by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, and the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, Government of India and DASA students.

Admission to post graduate programs like M.Tech requires competitive scores in Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering and Common Admission Test (CAT) for MBA and National Institute of Technology MCA Common Entrance Test (NIMCET) for MCA.

The fees for the Indian students are quite reasonable owing to the fact that most of the education is subsidised by the Govt. of India. The semester fees for a student admitted in Fall 2012 was $570 (Rs. 31,017). For foreign students from SAARC countries under DASA scheme, the fees were $1750 (Rs. 95,375) and from the Non-SAARC countries under DASA scheme, the fees were $3500 (Rs. 1,90,749).