The Undisputed 2â€â€A Rivalry Beyond Dominance Created by IITs and NITs
The vision of Jawaharlal Nehru to develop India as a leader in science and technology led to the foundation of first 14 RECs between 1959 and 1965, which later in 2003 became NITs. However, considering the fact that the history of IITs dates back to India’s pre-independence era, the foundation of 14 major RECs or NITs raises many questions.
All IITs founded before NITs were failing to deal with the high demand for technical and scientific education owing to the success of technology based industries. And the government wasn’t in a financially strong situation then to create more globally respected IITs to meet its ever growing demand for science and technical education in India. Hence, the government started RECs at Bhopal, Allahabad, Kozhikode, Durgapur, Kurukshetra, Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Nagpur, Rourkela, Srinagar, Surathkal, Surat, Tiruchirappalli, and Warangal. One more REC was founded in 1967 in Silchar while two others were founded in Hamirpur in 1986 and Jalandhar in 1987.
Under the leadership of Murli Manohar Joshi in 2003, all RECs were upgraded to National Institutes of Technology (NITs).
Although both IITs and NITs have equally contributed to the immense growth of India in technology and science on a global platform, comparisons were inevitably drawn by a large Indian group between the two hallowed institutions across the country. These comparisons have become a sort of benchmark for engineering aspirants to decide their best options in both institutions. Considering comparisons on one institution’s superiority over another are mostly flawed with biased facts, chances of making wrong choices in engineering institutions are high among engineering aspirants.
Hence to study in the right engineering institution, one needs to evaluate various factors of the institutions carefully and view comparisons from two different perspectives of other students.
Unlike existing comparisons, which are mostly biased or unreal, we have tried to view these comparisons from the perspectives of students from IITs and NITs.
Let’s take you through this study carried out by us in detail.
Companies founded by the students of IITs and NITs
Students founding companies in India and abroad are considered an ideal benchmark by their institutions to prove their dominance in the education sector. As a matter of fact, this is also closely reviewed by students before they apply for admission.
For example, there is Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT in the United States, which has companies founded by its graduates surpassing the mark of whopping $ 2 trillion in revenue. In other words, the total revenue of the companies founded by MIT graduates is more than India’s current GDP.
That explains how the number of graduates from IITs and NITs, those who have founded companies, can be taken as an ideal yardstick to figure out the better between the two.
A research firm in the United States was in sheer surprise when in a study conducted by it in December, 2013, revealed that IITians are among the leading founders of major startups in the US. Owing to this phenomenal success in the United States, IITs are the only non-US university featuring in the list prepared by PE/VC database firm PitchBook, led by Stanford and University of California, Berkeley.
“Perhaps the most interesting, and rather unexpected, entry on the list comes in at No. 10 – the Indian Institutes of Technology. India’s entry in the top 10 was definitely a surprise, but with that country’s boom in the IT industry over the last couple of decades, it stands to reason that Indian schools are producing innovative thinkers to fuel that country’s – and the world’s – rapidly growing and increasingly technology-reliant economy,†PitchBook said.
IITs have produced founders of many prestigious startups in India and abroad. Let’s go through the table given below to know the founders of such startups from IITs.
| Companies | Founders | Engineering Institutes |
| Infosys | N.R. Narayana Murthy | IIT-Kanpur |
| Snapdeal | Rohit Bansal | IIT-Delhi |
| Bluepage | Ayush Vashney, Sahil Baghla | IIT-Kanpur |
| Transweb | Aditya Singhal, Nishant Sinha | IIT-Delhi |
| Flipkart | Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal | IIT-Delhi |
| Travel Triangle | Sankalp Agarwal, Sanchit Garg, Prabhat Gupta | IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Guwahati |
| HCL Technologies | Arjun Malhotra (co-founder) | IIT-Kharagpur |
| Vinod Khosla | Sun Microsystem (co-founder) | IIT-Delhi |
Students from NITs are not far behind students of IITs in setting up startups and making India proud on a global platform.
Let’s go through the table given below to know founders of startup in India and abroad from NITs:
| Companies | Founders | Engineering Institutes |
| Simply 360 | Bhupendra Khanal | NIT-Durgapur |
| MindCron | S. Kumar Vimal | NIT-Dugrapur |
| Peepul Capital | Srini Raju | NIT-Kurukshetra |
| Microland Technologies | Pradeep Kar | NIT-Nagpur |
| iocL | Sudhir Vasudeva | NIT-Raipur |
| Bartec Middle East FZE | Umesh Kumar | NIT-Sri Nagar |
Notable Positions in the Business/Public/Academic/ sector Held by the Students of NITs and IITs
Both IITs and NITs have contributed immensely to India’s phenomenal growth in science and technology. There is not really much difference in the number of notable positions held by students of both the prestigious institutions in various sectors.
Notable positions held by IITians in business/public/academic sectors have been mentioned in the table given below:
| Name | Engineering Institution | Achievements |
| Soumitra Dutta | IIT-Delhi | Dean of Cornell University’s Management School |
| Nikesh Arora | IIT-Varanasi | Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer of Google |
| Ajit Jain | IIT-Kharagpur | President, Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, Director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute |
| Arogyaswami Paulraj | IIT-Delhi | Professor, Stanford University |
| Bharat Desai | IIT-Bombay | Chairman and CEO, Syntel |
| Chetan Bhagat | IIT-Delhi | Best-selling author of “Five Point Someone†and “One Night @ The Call Centre†|
| V. C. Kulandaiswamy | IIT-Kharagpur | Padma Shri (1992) and Padma Bhushan (2002) |
| Arvind Kejriwal | IIT-Kharagpur | Former Chief Minister of Delhi, Founder of Aam Aadmi Party |
| Manohar Parikar | IIT-Bombay | Chief Minister of Goa |
| G. V. Loganathan | IIT-Kanpur | Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute |
Notable positions held by students of NITs in business/public/academic sectors have been mentioned in the table given below:
| Name | Engineering Institution | Achievements |
| Dr. Rajesh Kumar Gupta | NIT Bhopal | Project Director, Agni 5, DRDO. |
| R.K. Wanchoo | NIT Srinagar | Executive Director, BHEL, Hyderabad |
| Sunil Dutt Sharma | NIT Srinagar | General Manager, Flovel Energy Pvt LTD, Faridabad |
| N Chandrasekaran | NIT, Trichy | Chief Executive Officer, Tata Consultancy Services |
| Prafulla Kumar Das | NIT, Rourkela (REC) | Engineer-in-Chief, Odisha (Retd.) |
| Nitish Kumar | NIT, Patna | Chief Minister of Bihar |
| Dawood Danesh Jafari | NIT, Srinagar | Minister of Finance & Economic Affairs, Iran |
| Ajit Jogi | NIT, Bhopal | First Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh |
| Hemant Karkare | NIT, Nagpur | Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief killed during the November 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks. |
| Samir Barua | NIT, Nagpur | Director, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad |
| Chitranjan Sahay | NIT, Jamshedpur | Chairman,Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hartford |
| Baldev Raj | NIT, Raipur | Indian scientist and Former director of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) in Kalpakkam, India. |
| Sudhir Vasudeva | NIT, Raipur | Gold Medalist in Chemical Engg. and CMD of the ONGC – Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, India |
Average Pay Package offered to Students of IITs and NITs
All companies across the world review various factors before determining average pay packages for students of IITs and NITs. Possibility of stretching this topic unnecessarily is high if we focus entirely on these factors. So to avoid confusion, we will review average pay packages in last 5 years offered to students of B.Tech at top IITs and NITs.
The average pay package offered to any IITian (B.Tech) is anywhere between Rs 43,750 and 48,000 monthly.
The average pay package offered to any student from NIT in (B.Tech) is anywhere between Rs          45,000 and 52,000 monthly.
However, you must not forget that there is a lot of variance among these packages due to various factors. Salaries go up and down as per the ability of candidates and their academic performances.
Average pay packages vary for candidates receiving job offers from abroad. As per official records, finance companies offer best packages to their employees. Goldman Sachs, Tower Research Capital, and World Quant etc have offered 20 lpa to IITians.
Highest Pay Packages Offered to Students of IITs and NITs
The world’s attention turns to IITs and NITs every year with the news of fat pay packages offered to their students. But if we talk about who beats another when it comes to bagging the highest pay packages, then there’s a lot of disparity to witness here.
There are 12 IITians from IIT-Kanpur who have very recently bagged a fat pay package of Rs. 1 crore each. On the other hand, there is one incredible student from NIT who has bagged the highest pay packages ever in the history of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT) from Facebook of Rs. 1.34 crore.
But again, as in case of average pay packages offered to students of IITs and NITs, highest pay packages too depend entirely on candidates’ abilities, academic performances, and other important factors.
Academic and Extra-Academic Environment
Being two prime technology institutes of India, educational and college environment of the two don’t really differ too much from each other. But, still, on various extra-academic factors, IITs are likely to score better than NITs.
The popularity of IITs among its engineering aspirants is highly driven by its educational and college environment. The ambience of IITs campus is both inspiring and vibrating with perfectly planned and aligned layout for the whole campus, libraries, and hostels.
NITs’ infrastructure is good too if not the best. Obviously, it doesn’t have infrastructure like MIT (USA) but whatever it has is impressive. With sophisticated libraries, hospitable classrooms, and beautiful hostels, NITs are definitely second to IITs in terms of infrastructure. They also have great computing facilities.
The courses and electives offered by NITs are highly impressive. Although chances of studying any subject of choice are rare in NITs, critics believe that the institution offers the best academic curriculum in engineering after IITs.
Fee Structure of IITs and NITs
Although both the engineering institutions are controlled by the fundamental bodies of the government of India, their fee structures are relatively different from each other. Fee structure of all IITs is higher than that of all NITs. Let’s take a view of fee structures of IITs and NITs across India in general category.
Fee for courses like B.Tech, M.Tech, and MCA courses in NITs was Rs. 35,000 per year in 2013, which has now been increased to Rs 70,000 per year. This increased amount of fee will be effective from next academic session 2014-2015 in NITs.
In 2013, fee for all undergraduate programs such as B.Tech, M.Tech, and MCA in IITs was Rs. 50,000 per year, which was increased to Rs. 90,000 per year.
Students must also note that the fee structure in all IITs is not the same. There are some NITs with fees lower than Rs. 30,000 per year.
Faculty
If report of standing committee on Human Resource Development is anything to go by then IITs, including those established recently, are undergoing a terrible shortage of faculty including.
According to standing committee, IIT-Hyderabad has a requirement of 85 faculty members while it currently has 74 faculty members. IIT-Bhubaneswar has total 50 faculty members against its requirement of 62 members.
Owing to this serious concern, most IITs have already started aggressive communication campaigns across the country to reach out to post docs and graduate students of top universities worldwide. IITs are also organizing meetings in various universities around the world.
NITs have also been facing shortage of quality faculty for a while now. And to address this problem as quickly as possible, a meeting was held at the NIT Council chaired by HRDM minister Kapil Sibal.
The discussion above is not only unbiased, but also highlights some major points that many engineering aspirants fail to consider while choosing an institution of their choice. The entire discussion revolves around giving students a reliable solution to help make them the most important decision of their academic careers. It will help all engineering aspirants compare the pros and cons of these two prime engineering institutions themselves and make decision accordingly.
Going through biased studies that are mostly available today can prove really frightening for students in their respective academic careers.  Modern generation now needs an unbiased platform from where it can view facts and take decision accordingly.
The discussion above is one such endeavor by us to help you gain better understanding of existing environment in IITs and NITs.
You are most welcome to share your views, opinions, and even disagreement with the article.
This post was published by Aditya Singhal, co-founder of askIITians.
The Undisputedâ€â€To Find the Real Truth behind IITs and BITS Disputed Dominance (BITS-Pilani Vs IIT)
To help us bring you breaking news and Informative Articles please subscribe to our blog!
you must include ISM Dhanbad from the IIT side.. Then the notable postions occupied will increase manifold 🙂
Its good review. I have studied at NIT and Currently I am a student of IIT. IIT has better faculty, labs and infrastructure but students are highly marks oriented and book worms. They study only for exams and grades. There is tough competition, jealousy and non-cooperation among students. This is my personal experience (and also people around me) and it may not be true, but as far as knowledge, team spirit and healthy academic environment is concerned, NITs are much better than IITs.
you are right that NITs infrastructure are not par with that of IITs but you should also consider the fact that IITs were funded heavily by the government from the day of their foundation but NITs which were RECs upon the time of their establishment were not as heavily funded . funding was such that there is no shortage of money for day to day administration but not enough funds for upgradation or building new infrastructure. but as they were eventually upgraded to NITs they are getting good amount of funds. therefore NITs doesn’t have better labs but as the passes and NITs upgrades and bulids new labs these problem will become history.
Wonderful blog! I found it while surfing around on Yahoo
News. Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News?
I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to
get there! Thank you
Wonderful blog ,it strikes at exact many of us at rite notes . I really needed such a comparison regarding this.thanks !!!!!
I’m from Manipal. Yes, our college cannot be compared to the above colleges but it would be better if we stop the comparison/arguments. Such studies don’t matter.
People are CEOs because they worked hard for it and not because they studied at a great college.
As someone said above. It would be really fruitful if we could make a forum for all engineering graduates to interact and collaborate rather than futile arguments. IITians/BITSians can help/advice other college grads.
Requirements to get in Manipal :
1. Parents should a grand bucks with them to pay for fee.
2. Some 30,000 students give the exam of Manipal College in which 65% of them are about to get flanked it boards and rest 30% can not afford the fee.
3. You get a rank between rest of them and think that you have done a great job.
HATS OFF 2 U MAN.
Requirements to get in IIT :
1. Should be worlds finest brains of the year.
2. Should be able to solve the question all 3 subjects in 3hrs. which your teacher can’t do 100% accurately even after 9 Hours(.
3. Number of applicants 15,00,000 number seats 10,000.
And still you dare to say that.
Da fuk mate ? It’s pointless even replying to fuckwits like you.. Finest brains my foot, all they need is be a fucking bookworm, I can guarantee 99% of the people in IITs won’t be able to get into MIT (USA) OR for that matter any decent University in foreign due to the simple fact that they don’t take in people just based on their “fine brains”, they must also do something else, AND my son, that’s the only way to success, many people haven’t graduated from IITs but it dosen’t mean they are unsuccessful.. People like you are a shame on the face of earth..
I agree to “Nikhil soni”.
Want some Anti-Indian professors Check out NIT Srinagar.
Where the if you request for organizing a tech fest it is a sin because it is culturally wrong as per the Dean and the Warden of the college.(invest your time in studies why waste it in festivals)
Where the students get backlogs not because they studied less but because they are non-Kashmiris.
Where the administrative authorities start stone pelting and landing blows on the students who organize a peaceful rally to put the demands for proper accomodation facilities..
If anyone from MHRD is reading it please replace the entire faculty except for Mechanical Dept.
The new director prof.Rakesh shaigal will definitely chamge the senerio of NIT sri….n one new newz NIT SRI has signed MOUs to IIT Jammu via IIT Delhi….all students frm nit sri can sit fr placement senerio of IIT J n D…n rest abt fest..
Everything will happen as new director is much devoted toward the overall development of college…!!
One more nitian is Mr. B K Dutta from NIT Durgapur Director Refinery of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited
I graduated from an NIT and I think at an NIT there is an all round development rather than IIT.However there is considerable difference between the admission procedure.At our time one could join an NIT through AIEEE but for IIT both prelims and mains (subjective) needed to be cleared. So some difference remains between the two.
There are many others that’s not mentioned Experience Andamans, Tonmoy Saha Films , Eimor Customs and Songsmith are companies founded by NIT Durgapur alumni.
Hello everyone. I graduated from NIT, Nagpur. While I do agree that IITs have better infrastructure & are more well known, NITs too have produced great engineers. The fact should remain that NITs were not constructed to compete with IITs. They were created to nurture young minds into taking up science & technology for the betterment of people not just in India, but around the world.
We put too much emphasis on IITs Vs NITs, but truth be told, both teach the same thing; engineering!
The talent at these prestigious schools overwhelmed me during my studies in Nagpur. Nonetheless, I learnt a lot and it was a wonderful experience for me. Would I have preferred to study in an IIT, rather than an NIT? Maybe. Maybe not. I have received as much adulation and respect from being an NITian, than I would have from being an IITian.
I only hope that all my fellow engineers who will graduate from these institutes will take up their profession seriously help India in the same way she has helped us by gifting us IITs and NITs.
Thank you, sir. What you said is indeed true..
-Student,
II Semester B.Tech, CSE, VNIT.
i have studied at NIT raipur and i had never heard about Baldev raj( ignorance). thanks for the review 🙂
Prigma Edutech Services By alumni Of NIT Jalandhar.
I am studying at IIT. Sesational blog by writer. I hope that this blog will definitely guide new aspirants to choose their college after jee exams.
As per my experiences IITS need more practicallity in curriculam. Average Student should get an opportunity to do reserch projects under experienced faculties.
I passed out from an NIT some 25 yrs back. In last 25 yrs, I have come across many engineers from IITs, NITs as well as many other branded/non-branded colleges.
In our times, IIT was not a such super brand. Serious students knew that to study some specific discipline, one has to get in to specific two/three colleges. Like for Civil engg, Roorkee (not IIT then) and BITS-Pilani were favored over any other colleges including IITs. Now the scenario has changed. Anything from IIT is good now.
Regarding quality of engineers – there are good engineers as well as bad engineers. Some of the IIT engineers are too good (from Industry specific view) and some are not so good. Same with engineers from other colleges. Difference is – the good/bad ratio is generally higher in IITs.
Please note that solving some theoritical question or solving some complicated maths problem does not mean someone is a good engineer. I have many engineers from IIT and other colleges reporting to me. And I have learnt Not to rely on the college brand names while solving a specific engg problem. It is what some learn after leaving colleges that matter in real life.
But yes, at initial stage, the branding matters more. Even for higher studies at US, a reco (recommendation) from IIT faculty is much more important for getting a Schol (scholarship).
Thanks for this valuable comment sir! (Y)
IIIT’s should also be included in this comparison. Though they are relatively new but there growing exponentially.
Hello everyone,
It’s quite a good and informative blog friend. I found it very interesting and thanks for that bucks of data you provided. Actually, I myself feel that IITs and NITs should not be compared with these branded private colleges because there’s literally no match. One may buy a degree with some good money but you just cant buy education or that sharpness from some random college. Now, if you talk about IIT vs NITs then it wouldn’t be such fair to argue for any one side because both are centrally funded institutions and government pay alot for some awesome brains herein .No one can deny the fact that IITs are funded miles heavily than any NIT for the basic amenities , infrastructure and at other required places still NITs don’t remain behind in any field and in producing the nation’s best brains along with the IITs as you have mentioned above nicely in your blog. I’m myself an NITian and feel that no matter you’re in IIT or NIT , you just have that different level of meantality unlike any other private college graduate.
Thank you .