Manipal Institute of Technology

A constituent college of the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (estb. 1956), MIT has been consistently ranked among the country’s Top 10 engineering colleges and #1 in Karnataka, in the EW India Higher Education Rankings for the past three years - Odeal D’Souza

Sited on a 162-acre campus atop a plateau overlooking the azure Arabian Sea to the west and forested Western Ghats to the east within India’s university town of Manipal (pop.50, 000) in Karnataka, the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) is a constituent college of the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE estb. 1956). Awarded deemed (private) university status in 1993, last month (July) MAHE was proclaimed one of the country’s six Institutes of Eminence by the Union HRD ministry. 

MIT (estb.1957) has been consistently ranked among the country’s Top 10 engineering colleges and #1 in Karnataka, in the EducationWorld India Higher Education Rankings for the past three years. Notable MIT alumni include Satya Nadella, CEO of IT behemoth Microsoft Corp, USA; Rajeev Suri, president of Nokia Corp, Europe; and M. George Muthoot, chairman of the Kochi (Kerala) based Muthoot Finance Ltd.

Founded as the Manipal Engineering College (MEC) by legendary educationist-philanthropist Dr. T.M.A Pai (1898 -1979), MEC admitted its first batch of 120 civil engineering students in 1957. Seventeen years later, Dr. Pai christened MEC as MIT after an inspirational visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Formerly affiliated with the Karnatak and Mysore universities, in 1980 MIT was brought under the purview of Mangalore University and finally affiliated with MAHE in 2000.

“Right from the start, our goal has been to provide high-quality industry-focused technical education combining project work, research and in-company internships. I believe it’s this combination of hands-on curriculums tailored to meet industry needs that has enabled us to produce industry-ready engineers who are welcomed by higher education institutions and corporates in India and around the world,” says Dr. Srikanth Rao, director of MIT. 

An alumnus of Manipal and Mysore universities, Rao began his career in industry as a mechanical engineer with Hindustan Dorr-Oliver Ltd, prior to signing up with his alma mater as a professor of mechanical engineering in 1989. In 2012 he was appointed joint director and promoted to the office of director in January this year. 

Like the neighbouring Kasturba Medical College (KMC, estb. 1953) — also a constituent unit of MAHE — which has established a global reputation (25 percent of all medical practitioners in Malaysia are KMC graduates), MIT too has established an international reputation. Almost 10 percent of enrolled students are from ten foreign countries including Tanzania, Oman, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Moreover faculty and student exchange programmes have been signed up with top-ranked universities worldwide. Among them: Melbourne and National (Australia), Chemnitz (Germany), EFREI — Engineering School of Information and Digital Technologies (France), Nottingham and Strathclyde, Glasgow (UK), and Cincinnati (USA) universities. Currently MIT, which has an enrolment of 8,864 students including 739 foreign students mentored by 650 faculty, offers 16 undergraduate B.Tech and 25 Masters and doctoral programmes in engineering and science (nanotechnology, drug discovery and delivery, data analytics, cloud computing) etc. 

Yet perhaps the unique feature of MIT and MAHE is the heavy investment which has been steadily made in campus and infrastructure development during the past six decades. MIT’s sprawling campus houses six academic blocks comprising 93 spacious IT-enabled classrooms, 167 well-equipped laboratories, a 3,000-seat open-air auditorium, a students plaza with a built-up area of 3,405 sq. metres, eight 120-seat seminar halls and a well-stocked library with 121,410 volumes and 11,930 journal subscriptions — facilities matching the best worldwide. Moreover, the fully-residential MIT offers 26 air-conditioned hostels for men and women students including one exclusively for international students — student housing widely considered the best countrywide. 

Moreover unlike the overwhelming majority of the country’s engineering colleges which tend to neglect extra-curricular education, MIT provides extensive facilities including a well-equipped indoor sports complex housing a swimming pool, gymnasium, badminton, tennis, basketball, handball, volleyball and throwball courts. MIT also offers cricket, hockey and football grounds and an athletics track. Students can also access MAHE’s 142,042 sq. ft indoor sports complex christened The Marena. 

Unsurprisingly, MIT graduates have little difficulty in finding well-paid and fulfilling employment. Among the companies which are regulars for campus recruitment are Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, Cisco, Accenture, Infosys, Mercedes Benz and Honeywell. In 2016-17, the institute recorded 100 percent placement with the start-up salary of graduates ranging from Rs.3.5-23 lakh per year.

“Although MAHE is ranked among India’s Top 10 private universities (by EducationWorld) and among the global 1,000 under the parameter of research and innovation, we are not resting on our laurels and making a determined research drive in MIT. Therefore, we have drawn up plans to establish research centres in all faculties and to increase the output of research papers cited in refereed journals by 25 percent in the next few years. The conferment of Institute of Eminence status by the Central government on our parent university is also certain to attract additional industry-sponsored research and consultancy projects for MIT. We are racing towards our goal of closing the gap between MIT, USA and MIT, Manipal,” says Dr. Rao.