India in the late 1940s, having just won independence through a non-violent and grass roots movement, was building a democratic nation that would provide all its citizens with the equal opportunities.
In 1946, a committee was setup to explore setting up technical institutes of higher education for post-war industrial development of India and based on recommendation of the Sarkar Committee, the first Indian Institute of Technology was born in May 1950 in Kharagpur, West Bengal at the site of Hijli Detention camp. Four other campuses were subsequently founded at Bombay (1958), Madras (1959), Kanpur (1960) and Delhi (1961). In 1995, a sixth campus at Guwahati was added and most recently in 2001, a seventh campus was established by upgrading Roorkee University, one of India's oldest engineering institutions, into an IIT.
Today, IIT offers undergraduate, integrated postgraduate and postgraduate degrees in over 25 different engineering, technology and business/management disciplines.
