NIT's Ranking – Best NITs in India

After IITs, the National Institutes of Technology or NITs form the second best engineering institutional group in India. According to NIT's ranking, these autonomous colleges are counted amongst the best engineering colleges in the eyes of aspirants. Many students yearn to get admission in NITs every year, which motivates them to appear for one of the most difficult entrance exams called JEE or Joint Entrance Examination. All NITs admit engineering students based on their JEE Mains scores.

Establishment of NITs

Before telling you about NIT's ranking, let us give you a background of NITs and how these institutes started operating. Actually, NITs have been formed out of the renowned RECs or Regional Engineering Colleges. These RECs were set up in the pre-independence era in India. This was done from the year 1959 onwards. Considering the need of highly trained technical and engineering staff in many industries operating across the country, the state governments and the central government founded these regional colleges.

In the beginning, eight such regional colleges were founded. However, five more RECs were established later in 1965, which was followed by the establishment of some other regional colleges. This was done to meet the growing need of personnel in the technical and scientific fields. While the government considered the addition of more IITs in India, the decision was later replaced by the upgrading of RECs in the form of new institutions that had to be named NITs or National Institutes of Technology. Thus, the design of IITs was taken as the base to redesign RECs as NITs, which are now leading the NIT's ranking.

While the upgrading work of RECs was performed in 2002, more NITs were required. This need was fulfilled by converting some other colleges into NITs. For instance, the upgrading was done for the Government Engineering College in Raipur as well as for Bihar Engineering College and Tripura Engineering College. Later in 2010, every state’s need of having a NIT was met by the central government’s announcement of opening 10 new NITs. However, most of these new colleges do not yet stand among the best on NIT's ranking.

Leading NITs based on the MHRD ranks

The List of NITs

Presently, there are 31 NITs in total, while the age-old NITs have been on the top of NIT's ranking. We will tell you about the best of NITs you can choose from, but let us now inform you of all the NITs that offer high-quality engineering courses to students. The established 31 NITs include the following:

• NIT Surathkal (Karnataka)
• NIT Hamirpur (Himachal Pradesh)
• NIT Agartala (Tripura)
• NIT Srinagar (Jammu and Kashmir)
• NIT (Uttarakhand)
• NIT Patna (Bihar)
• NIT Puducherry (Puducherry)
• NIT Ponda (Goa)
• NIT Durgapur (West Bengal)
• NIT Tiruchirappalli (Tamil Nadu)
• NIT Rourkela (Orissa)
• NIT Yupia (Arunachal Pradesh)
• NIT Silchar (Assam)
• NIT Jalandhar (Punjab)
• NIT Meghalaya (Meghalaya)
• NIT Kurukshetra (Haryana)
• NIT Jamshedpur (Jharkhand)
• NIT Aizawl (Mizoram)
• NIT Delhi (Delhi)
• NIT Calicut (Kerala)
• NIT Warangal (Telangana)
• NIT Dimapur (Nagaland)
• NIT Imphal (Manipur)
• NIT Sikkim (Sikkim)
• NIT Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh)
• NIT Raipur (Chhattisgarh)
• MNIT (Malviya National Institute of Technology), Jaipur (Rajasthan)
• VNIT (Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology), Nagpur (Maharashtra)
• SVNIT (Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology), Surat (Gujarat)
• MNNIT (Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology), Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh)
• MANIT (Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh)

All these NITs are public institutions receiving a grant from the Government of India. These premier engineering institutes also receive special recognition from the government, and these are declared as the institutes of national importance. Students can pursue engineering and technology courses at NITs that offer several programmes at Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD levels. While they can go for B-Tech and M-Tech programmes separately, they can also take up courses like the integrated B-Tech + M-Tech. Many NITs offer dual-degree courses.

Access the JEE Main College Predictor to check the colleges for which you are eligible.

The Best NITs in India per MHRD Ranking

The Government of India’s HRD ministry offers an official ranking of engineering institutions every year in India. According to its latest rankings, many NITs that have made it to the list, along with several premier institutions like IITs and IISc. The NIT's ranking in this list of 100 colleges is not serially, as there are other institutions in the list. However, we are providing you with the top-ranked NITs in this list in an ascending order of ranks. We are also giving you the exact rank of every NIT in this list.

Further, the NIT's ranking in the first column is in a serial order, as these ranks are only for NITs but based on the MHRD ranks. Thus, you will be able to compare all top 15 NITs that we mention in this list. While there are a few other NITs in NIRF ranking, we have chosen the best 15 out of them. Please note that these rankings may vary every year. MHRD decides these ranks based on various factors, which include the institute’s faculty, academics, alumni, college placements, infrastructure and facilities like laboratories, students’ performance results, etc. Below, find out the NITs that stand on top:

If you take a closer look at the given NIT's ranking, you will notice that the old RECs upgraded to NITs have made it among the very best in the list. Undoubtedly, these institutes have been offering high-quality engineering education, as well as a rich learning environment to students. These best 15 NITs also have the best of learning and informational resources, teaching pedagogy, research and industrial training opportunities, and professional practice options for students. All this has changed the perception of aspiring students towards these NITs.