Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur

Establishment

Prompted by the idea of meeting the requirement for trained engineering personnel for the Public Works Department, the Council of Education, Bengal, decided to open Civil Engineering classes and a Professorship in Civil Engineering. A college was established on 24 November 1856 named Calcutta Civil Engineering College, training personnel for the Public Works Department, and located at the Writers' Building, Howrah. With the establishment of Calcutta University on 24 January 1857, the college was affiliated to this university in May 1857. The first degree examination for the Bachelor of Civil Engineering was held in 1864, when two students graduated. In 1865, the college merged with Presidency College, Kolkata and from 1865 to 1869 the college functioned as the Civil Engineering Department of Presidency College. In 1880, the college was shifted to its present campus at Shibpur, Howrah, and was christened the Government College, Howrah, in the premises of Bishop's College.^[3] The college became wholly residential from the year 1889. In 1906 Mining Engineering as a discipline was first started in India in this college to meet the requirements of statutory provision in Indian mines. After independence, Dr. B. C. Roy, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, revamped the department to satisfy the demand for mining professionals, and the Department of Mining & Geology was reborn in 1956. On 12 February 1920 the name was changed to Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur. The word Shibpur was deleted on 24 March 1921 and it became Bengal Engineering College.^[4] The Department of Electrical Engineering came into existence as a separate department from 1912. The B.E. degree course was introduced during 1935–36 with the first batch obtaining the degree from Calcutta University in 1936.The inception of the Mechanical Engineering Department may be traced back to 1921 when a diploma course in Mechanical Engineering was started in this Institute. The first degree course in Mechanical Engineering started in July 1930. The Department of Metallurgy started its journey at the Bengal Engineering College in the year 1939 with the introduction of a three-year degree course in Metallurgy under the Calcutta University. The department is the second oldest metallurgy department of the country.

Post-independence period

After the independence of India in 1947, the Department of Architecture, Town and Regional Planning was started on the recommendation of a committee appointed by Government of West Bengal. Two new courses were started at the same time – one with a five-year degree programme in Architecture another with a two-year part-time diploma programme in Town & Regional Planning. The Department of Architecture, Town and Regional Planning (established in 1949) that offered the First Degree in Architecture and the First Diploma in Town Planning in INDIA. This department has produced more than 800 graduates in Architecture and more than 300 postgraduates in Town Planning in the last fifty years. Its students also founded the National Association of Students of Architecture, briefly designated as NASA India, a non-political, non-profit Student Body Association for the Undergraduate Students of Architecture in India in 1957, with six other colleges. With the end of the Second World War, a 'Committee for the Development of Higher Engineering and Technical Education in Bengal' under the Chairmanship of the Director of Public Instruction recommended two plans – one 'Immediate' and the other 'Five Year Plan' for the college. Under the 'Immediate' plan the committee made recommendations regarding the increase of student strength from 300 to 520, an improved curriculum, better teaching staff, a greater range of degree courses and a close liaison with industry. The objective of the 'Five Year Plan' was to upgrade the college to the status of a modern institution with facilities for postgraduate study and research. A new building was constructed in 1949 and all academic departments were moved to the new building. In 1954, postgraduate courses in Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, and Metallurgical were introduced. A postgraduate certificate course in Naval Architecture was introduced during this period. Doctoral programs were introduced at this time and approved by Calcutta University to enhance research activities in the college. In 1954 an agreement was concluded by the college and the University of Wisconsin, USA, whereby six guest professors from the USA joined the college and in exchange, five teachers from the college went to the USA as Research Associate. This scheme, known as Technical Co-operation Programme of the USA, helped the college in developing laboratories, postgraduate programmes and research facilities. The college celebrated its gala centenary function inaugurated by Dr. B.C. Roy on 25 December 1956, and the concluding session was attended by Pandit Jawarlal Nehru on 14 January 1957. The Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering started functioning as a separate discipline of engineering in July 1968. The college started its first Computer Centre in 1976 and a Microprocessor Laboratory in 1979. The 125th Anniversary of the college was celebrated on 11 December 1981, with inauguration by Sri N. Sanjiva Reddy, the then President of India. The Department of Computer Science and Technology was established in 1982. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate engineering courses. The department started offering the Master of Engineering courses in 1988 and Master of Computer Applications courses in 1991. The college was selected as a participating institute under the World Bank EIDP Project and an endowment for Rs. 200,000,000 was received for upgrading the teaching facilities and laboratories in the Electronics and Computer Science Departments. In recognition of its service to the nation, the college was elevated to the status of a Deemed University in 1992, breaking its ties with the Calcutta University by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India on the recommendation of a UGC Expert Committee.^[3] Formal inauguration was done on 13 March 1993, by the then President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma. ^[4] School of Management Sciences (SMOS) and School of Information Technology were established in 1998 and 2000 respectively. It is the second youngest of the ten engineering departments in BESU. The School of Material Science and Engineering (2001), School of Community Science and Technology (2002) were introduced. On 1 October 2004 the institution was elevated to a full-fledged university with the present name.^[4] It was formally inaugurated by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the President of India, on 13 July 2005. In 2010 Department of Aerospace Engineering started along with the Applied Mechanics department.

In March 2014, it was upgraded to the status of Institutes of National Importance under the banner of Indian Institutes of Engineering Science and Technology, thus renaming it IIEST Shibpur.

In June 2014, Govt. of West Bengal appointed IIEST Shibpur as the Mentor Institute for Indian Institute of Information Technology, Kolkata, the eleventh addition to the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) family of engineering institutes.^[5][6] It was inaugurated by the President of India on 24 August 2014.

Admission procedure

Admission to most undergraduate and postgraduate courses in IIEST Shibpur is granted through written entrance examinations. Currently it's JEE (Main) conducted by the NTA (National Testing Agency)

Education

Schools

• Purabi Das School of Information Technology
• Dr. M. N. Dastur School of Material Science & Engineering
• School of Management Science
• School of Community Science & Technology
• School of Disaster Mitigation Engineering
• School of Ecology, Infrastructure & Human Settlement Management
• School of Mechatronics & Robotics
• School of Safety & Occupational Health Engineering
• School of VLSI Technology

Cells

• Research & Consultancy
• Entrepreneurship Development Cell
• Career Counselling

Centers

• Computer Center
• Facility of Video Conference
• Center of Excellence for Green Energy and Sensor System
• Center of Healthcare Science and Technology
• Cognizant innovation lab
• Tagore centre for Green Technology Business Incubation
• Sophisticated Analytical Test Facility (SAIF)
• Integrated Bio-solar-wind microgrid centre
• Center of water and environmental research
• Center of homeopathic research

Library

The area of the library is 3,000 square meters. The collection of books is about 158,000 and 41,000 bound volumes of journals, and a collection of documents, such as patents, standards, technical reports and pamphlets. The library has old and rare books and journals of the nineteenth century.

Halls of Residence

IIEST Shibpur has on-campus residential facilities for students, research scholars, faculty and staff.

The Institute, with a student population of more than 3200, has 17 hostels including two girls' hostels for UG students and one girls' hostel for PG and Research Scholars. There are 9 hostels for boys.There are 5 single-seated halls for boys and 3 girls' hostels (single and multi-seated).

Festivals

IIEST Shibpur has festivals like REBECA, Instruo. REBECA, short for REunion and Bengal Engineering College Annuals, is the cultural fest of IIEST Shibpur. It is the oldest student-organised festival in India. From REBECAs very inception since 1932, it has been the annual reunion function of the then B.E. College, later on it has been transformed into an annual college fest cum reunion, being the biggest of its kind in eastern India. It is held in the even semester. REBECA consists of 4 nights: Classical Night (decorated with amazing performances by well known classical singers and dance groups such as Dipankar Roy, Violin Brothers), BEings Night (performances by the students of IIEST Shibpur portraying their talent including dance competitions followed by performance by bands like Fossils), Kolkata Night (spellbinding performances by artists and bands from Kolkata such as Underground Authority, Euphoria, The Local Train giving local artists a huge platform to show their talent) and Mumbai Night (sensational performances by various Bollywood sensations such as Mika Singh, Shreya Ghosal, Shaan, Javed Ali, KK, Benny Dayal, Shefali Alvares).

The student community of IIEST Shibpur organises an annual technical festival known as Instruo. Began in 2009, it has become the biggest technical festival in Kolkata with a participation of over 2000 students from all over India. The 3-day festival is organised in the odd semester, generally between Durga Puja and Diwali. Events include technical workshops, exhibitions, hackathons and competitions.

Automaton, the annual robotics competition held by IIEST Shibpur, is organised during Instruo.

Entrepreneurship Development Cell of IIEST Shibpur organises Scintillations, the annual E-Summit of IIEST Shibpur.

Euphony, the official music society of IIEST Shibpur organises Oikotaan, which is a non-competitive open music festival started in 2015. Musicians from all over the country come to perform their Original Compositions of any genre whatsoever in front of eminent personalities from the music industry.

Quizmaniac BEings, the official quiz club of IIEST Shibpur organises Gyandhara, the Open Quiz Festival of IIEST Shibpur.