Indian Institutes of Engineering Science and Technology (abbreviated as IIEST) was a planned group of academic institutions in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

for research and education in engineering, originally proposed by the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

in 2007 to meet the increasing demand for technological and scientific workforce in the industrial and service sectors of India as well as the growing need for qualified personnel in research and development.

List of institutes

The other institute in the original Anandakrishnan Committee recommendation, that is, Benaras Hindu University Institute of Technology, was upgraded to be part of the Indian Institutes of Technology in 2012. Indian Institutes of Technology are tasked as mentors for conversion of the above-mentioned institutes to IIEST. The conversion process of BESU to IIEST is mentored by IIT Kanpur.

Conversion of BESU to IIEST

The first institute to be upgraded to IIEST was

Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur (IIEST Shibpur), erstwhile Bengal Engineering College (also known as B.E. College), formerly Bengal Engineering and Science University (also known as BESU), is a public research ...

(BESU), which was a university under the Government of West Bengal prior to the upgrade process. It took some years for the Government of India to finally decide to go ahead with the process recommended by the Anandakrishnan Committee for upgrading the selected group of state universities to the nation level under the IIEST banner. It was thus in October 2010, that the Union Cabinet of Ministers of the Government of India formally approved the process of conversion of

to Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, by suitably amending the National Institutes of Technology and Science Education and Research Act, 2007. Accordingly, the amendment bill was tabled in the lower house (

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

) of the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of the ...

in March 2013 and subsequently passed by it in December 2013. Following this, the bill was also passed in the upper house (

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

) in February 2014. The bill received the presidential assent by

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Mur ...

Pranab Mukherjee Dr. Pranab Mukherjee (11 December 193531 August 2020) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the 13th president of India from 2012 until 2017. In a political career spanning five decades, Mukherjee was a senior leader in the India ...

on 4 March 2014, thereby legalizing the upgrade process. —In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of Section 1 of the NITSER(Amendment) Act, 2014, the Central Government appointed the 4th day of March, 2014 (i.e. date of receiving assent of the President) as the date on which the provisions of the said Act shall come into force. That is BESU has become the first IIEST of the country with effect from 4 March 2014. The conversion process of BESU to IIEST shall be mentored by IIT Kanpur. IIEST was inaugurated by President of India, Pranab Mukherjee on 24 August 2014.

Governance and organization

As the first IIEST (IIEST Shibpur) starts to function from the academic year 2014–15, the governance model and organizational structure will become clear subsequently and is currently in the stage of being formulated (as of March 2014). Rajya Sabha Member V. Vijaya Sai Reddy urged the Union government to upgrade the AU College of Engineering (AUCE) as the Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology, as per the recommendations of the Anandakrishnan Committee. But, unfortunately, the report was not implemented, even after 14 years after it was submitted by the committee.

References

External links

The IIT story: IIESTs, 3 new IITs on way

Anandkrishnan Committee Report on IIESTs
* {{cite web, url=http://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/the-national-institutes-of-technology-science-education-and-research-amendment-bill-2013-2663, title=PRS – Bill Track – The National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2013, website=Prsindia.org, accessdate=23 October 2018 Engineering education in India