Kolkata : On 18 August 2025, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur completed its magnificent seventy-five years. Established in 1951 as the very first IIT of independent India, it became the cornerstone of the nation’s dream of scientific and technological self-reliance. Built on the bricks of the historic Hijli Detention Camp, this institute today stands among the world’s finest technical universities. As we celebrate its Platinum Jubilee, its journey unfolds as an extraordinary blend of struggle, vision, innovation, and nation-building.
Birth: From Hijli to Kharagpur
In 1946, the committee headed by Sir Jogendra Singh recommended the creation of higher technical institutions to produce 15,000 engineering graduates annually. Exactly four years after independence, on 18 August 1951, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad laid the foundation of India’s first national institute of technology inside the Hijli Detention Camp – the same prison that once held Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and countless other revolutionaries. The first convocation in 1956 was addressed by Jawaharlal Nehru himself, who bestowed upon it the proud title of “Indian Institute of Technology”.
In the beginning, there were only 224 students and 42 faculty members. The institute started with five departments: Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics & Communication, and Metallurgy. The first batch consisted of students who had passed only the tenth grade; they underwent two years of pre-engineering followed by a four-year B.Tech programme.
The Golden Era (1950s–1970s)
During the 1950s and 60s, IIT Kharagpur forged collaborations with almost every major foreign university that helped shape the modern IIT system. Nearly 250 foreign professors came from the Illinois Institute of Technology (USA), eight German technical universities, Soviet institutes, and through UNESCO. This was the period when the famous “Kharagpur School of Thought” emerged – rooted in practicality, discipline, and service to the nation.
In 1961, India’s first M.Tech programme was launched here. In 1959, the institute awarded the country’s first PhD (Dr. Sudhir Ghosh, Civil Engineering). By the 1970s, it had grown to 15 departments, several centres, and over 2,500 students.
A Laboratory of Firsts
Kharagpur has always maintained a tradition of being the “first”:
• India’s first 5-year integrated M.Sc. programme (1973)
• The first MBA programme in any IIT (Vinod Gupta School of Management, 1993)
• The first law school in any IIT (Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, 2006)
• The first full-fledged medical college and hospital in any IIT (B.C. Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research with 200 beds)
• India’s first supercomputer under the National Supercomputing Mission (PARAM Shivay, 2019)
• India’s first floating solar power plant (2020)
• India’s cheapest and fastest COVID-19 testing kit “COVIRAP” (2020, costing only ₹600)
Global Recognition
In the QS World University Rankings 2025, IIT Kharagpur stands third in India and 222nd globally. It consistently ranks among the world’s top 50 in Engineering & Technology. In the 2024 Nature Index, it was the second-highest ranked institution in India. With over 14,000 research papers published annually, more than 300 patents filed every year, and over 150 start-ups incubated (including companies like Hydration Tech, NanoClean, and MindTree co-founders), these numbers speak for themselves.
The campus culture is legendary. Spread over 2,100 acres of lush greenery, it remains one of the largest university campuses in the world. Historic halls like Nehru Hall, Patel Hall, Azad Hall, and Lala Lajpat Rai Hall; the iconic Old Main Building of 1951 whose clock still keeps perfect time; the 2.6-kilometre-long Scholars’ Avenue; the historic Gymkhana ground where Sachin Tendulkar practised in 1999; and the Technology Students’ Gymkhana – Asia’s largest student body – all combine to create a unique cultural identity.
Spring Fest (the social & cultural fest) and Kshitij (Asia’s largest techno-management fest) attract students from across the globe every year.
Science for Society
IIT Kharagpur has never limited itself to awarding degrees; it has always given back to society:
• Coastal erosion models after the 2004 tsunami
• Reconstruction technology after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake
• Bio-reactors for cleaning the Ganga
• Low-cost sensors for farmers (Department of Agricultural & Food Engineering)
• Affordable solar lamps and water purifiers for rural India
Alumni: Shaping the World
Among its nearly 130,000 alumni are some extraordinary names:
• Sundar Pichai (CEO, Google)
• Arvind Krishna (CEO, IBM)
• Parag Agrawal (former CEO, Twitter)
• Vinod Gupta (co-founder, InfoUSA; benefactor of VGSoM)
• Ajit Balakrishnan (founder, Rediff.com)
• Duvvuri Subbarao (former Governor, Reserve Bank of India)
• Biswadeep Bhattacharya (Global Head of Beverages, PepsiCo)
These are just a few. Almost one in every ten Indian-origin CEOs in the United States is an IIT Kharagpur alumnus.
The 75th Year: A New Resolve
In its Platinum Jubilee year, IIT Kharagpur has unveiled the vision “Future Ready India @100”. To make India a developed nation by 2047, the institute has set ambitious targets:
• Net-zero carbon campus by 2030
• Centre of Excellence in Quantum Technology
• Semiconductor manufacturing research
• 500 PhDs per year in Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
• Incubation of 500 start-ups
On 18 August 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi digitally inaugurated the 75th-year celebrations and said, “The history of Kharagpur is the history of India’s self-confidence.”
The same bricks of Hijli jail that once sheltered freedom fighters are today building the ladder for India to become a global superpower. In seventy-five years, IIT Kharagpur has not merely produced engineers; it has crafted dreams – dreams that land Chandrayaan on the moon, dreams that run Google and IBM, dreams that are turning India into a $5-trillion economy.
When dusk falls on this 2,100-acre campus and the last rays of the sun touch those red bricks, it feels as if the bricks are whispering: “The dream we saw in 1951 is now becoming reality.”
When the next seventy-five years are complete, this very campus might be running space stations or Mars missions.
IIT Kharagpur is not just an institution; it is an idea – the idea of young India, of India’s technological ambition, of India’s radiant future.
