The Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) are a group of higher education institutions in India that focus on information technology, computer science, electronics and allied disciplines. They were established by the Government of India to meet the demand for skilled professionals in the information technology sector and to support research and innovation in IT-driven fields.
| Type | Public technical institutes |
|---|---|
| Focus areas | Information technology, computer science, electronics, communication |
| Country | India |
| Governing legislation | IIIT Act, 2014; IIIT (PPP) Act, 2017 |
| Administered by | Ministry of Education, Government of India |
| Categories | Institutes of National Importance (designated IIITs) |
Overview
The IIITs operate under three different funding and governance models. The first model consists of fully centrally funded institutes set up directly by the Government of India. The second consists of institutes established under the Public–Private Partnership (PPP) model, jointly funded by the central government, the respective state government, and industry partners. The third comprises a small number of older institutes that pre-date the standardised models and operate under their own arrangements, such as the IIIT at Hyderabad and the IIIT at Bangalore, which function as autonomous state-supported institutions.
Background
The earliest institutions using the IIIT name were set up in the late 1990s, with the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad established in 1998 and the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore established in 1999. These were created as autonomous, not-for-profit institutes with state government and industry support, and served as reference models for later expansion.
Following the recognition that information technology education needed wider geographical reach, the central government began establishing additional IIITs from the mid-2000s onwards. The Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, founded in 1999, was among the first centrally funded institutes and was later granted the status of a deemed university and subsequently of an Institute of National Importance.
Legislative framework
Two principal Acts of Parliament govern most of the IIITs:
- The Indian Institutes of Information Technology Act, 2014 declared the centrally funded IIITs at Allahabad, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Kancheepuram as Institutes of National Importance and provided a common statutory framework for their governance.
- The Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Public–Private Partnership) Act, 2017 extended Institute of National Importance status to IIITs established under the PPP scheme, enabling them to grant their own degrees.
Governance and academics
Each IIIT is headed by a Director and is governed by a Board of Governors, with overall coordination by an IIIT Council chaired by the Union Minister of Education. Admission to undergraduate B.Tech. programmes is conducted through the Joint Entrance Examination (Main), with seat allocation through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA). Postgraduate admissions typically use the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) and institute-level processes.
Academic programmes commonly offered include B.Tech. and Integrated M.Tech. degrees in Computer Science and Engineering, Information Technology, and Electronics and Communication Engineering, along with M.Tech., M.S. by Research, and Ph.D. programmes. Several institutes additionally offer specialised courses in areas such as artificial intelligence, data science, cyber security, VLSI design and computational linguistics.
List of institutes
Centrally funded IIITs
- IIIT Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
- IIITDM Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh
- IIITM Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh
- IIITDM Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu
- IIITDM Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh
IIITs under the PPP model
A series of IIITs have been set up across states including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Examples include IIIT Sri City, IIIT Guwahati, IIIT Bhagalpur, IIIT Naya Raipur, IIIT Vadodara, IIIT Sonepat, IIIT Una, IIIT Ranchi, IIIT Dharwad, IIIT Kottayam, IIIT Bhopal, IIIT Pune, IIIT Senapati (Manipur), IIIT Kalyani, IIIT Lucknow, IIIT Kota, IIIT Tiruchirappalli and IIIT Agartala.
State-supported autonomous institutes
- International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H)
- International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIIT-B)
- Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-Delhi)
Significance
The IIIT system is intended to complement the older Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) by focusing specifically on information technology and producing trained manpower for the IT industry, research laboratories and academic institutions. The PPP model in particular sought to involve industry directly in technical education, aligning curricula with applied needs and ensuring that institutes were distributed across regions of India that previously lacked specialised IT institutions.
Related topics
- Indian Institutes of Technology
- National Institutes of Technology
- Institutes of National Importance
- Joint Entrance Examination (Main)
- Ministry of Education (India)
- IIIT Hyderabad
- IIIT Bangalore
- IIIT Delhi
- IIIT Allahabad
References
- The Indian Institutes of Information Technology Act, 2014, Government of India.
- The Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Public–Private Partnership) Act, 2017, Government of India.
- Ministry of Education, Government of India — official information on technical institutes.