The Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), Manipal, was established in 1957 as one of the first self-financing engineering colleges in the country. MIT is a constituent unit of Manipal Academy of Higher Education.
The institute has 18 academic departments and awards undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate degrees.[1] The MIT campus is spread over 313 acres of what once used to be a desolate plateau of hard, laterite rock in southern Karnataka's Udupi district. The institute undertakes sponsored research programs supported by funding agencies such as DST, CSIR, AICTE, and the Ministry of Environmental Sciences. It has collaborative research programs in association with premier research laboratories and institutes in India and abroad.[3]
In 2018, Government of India had awarded it as Institute of Eminence.[4]
History
Foundation and early years (1957–1960)
Manipal Engineering College (MEC) was inaugurated on 11 May 1957 by the then Chief Minister of Mysore, S. Nijalingappa.[5][6] The first President of the college was Roque Fernandes. In the initial months, lectures were held at the Kasturba Medical College, Manipal campus before the infrastructure was ready at its present campus towards the end of 1957. The institute started with 25 staff members and an annual intake of 120 students for the undergraduate courses on a campus of 180 acres (0.73 km2).
Growth and expansion (1961–current)
Civil engineering was the first discipline to be offered at the institute, but by 1961, full undergraduate programs were also available in the areas of mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. Housing facilities were operational from 1961 for outstation students.
In the initial years, the institute was affiliated with the Karnatak University.[3] In 1965, the institute got affiliated to the University of Mysore.[7] More courses were added over the decades as the college expanded. The MIT Manipal Student Chapter of the Institution of Engineers (Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering) was established in the mid-1960s.
In 1969, Chemical Engineering was introduced as a branch of study, followed by Electronics and Communication engineering. In 1973, the semester scheme was adopted, and a one-year postgraduate diploma in industrial engineering was offered. In the same year, the Venugopala Temple, modelled on the famous Kirti Mandir, Vadodara, Gujarat was built.
The MIT campus has been visited by several notable persons. The Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama visited the college in 1966. The 1970s saw the visit of Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India.[8]
In 1974, it was renamed as Manipal Institute of Technology. The institute was brought under the purview of Mangalore University in 1980.[3] In 1979, other branches of study such as Industrial Production and Architecture, were introduced. The construction of the 4-floor library building with an area of 83,000 square feet (7,700 m2) and more hostel blocks, including 7th, 9th blocks and women's hostels were completed in the 1980s. The swimming pool was inaugurated in 1986, and the floodlit basketball court at Kamath Circle in 1989.
The New Lecture Hall Complex (near) and the Innovation Centre (far)Academic Block 5
2006 saw the construction of the Innovation Center, housing companies such as Phillips and EMC2 and associated research and development. The 7-floor 13th Block located between the 3rd and 4th blocks for housing lady students was also completed during this period. The adjoining New Lecture Hall complex ('NLH') was built anticipating the increase in intake and was inaugurated in the year 2006. 2007 saw the inauguration of Academic Block 5, the largest academic building on campus, housing classrooms, academic and research labs, and department and faculty offices.
Undergraduate courses in Instrumentation and Control Engineering were added in 2001 and Mechatronics was added in 2006 and those in Aeronautical Engineering and Automobile Engineering were added in 2008. The Department of Architecture was rechristened as The Faculty of Architecture in 2006, and then as Manipal School of Architecture and Planning and Design, as a separate institute under the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in 2011. In 2013, an integrated course in Computer Science and Communication Engineering was added, under the department of Information and Communication Technology. The annual undergraduate student intake increased from 800 spread over 12 engineering disciplines in the year 2003 to 1,500 spread over 16 disciplines in 2008. As of July 2011[update], the institute has an intake of more than 2,300 students.[11]
The institute was also visited by Smt. Pratibha Patil, the then President of India for the university's annual convocation in December 2010. The then Finance Minister and future President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee also visited the institute on 26 May 2012 to inaugurate one of the Academic Blocks. The institute was visited by acclaimed South Indian film director S.S. Rajmouli in October 2017. The institute also played host to the 49th annual convention of the National Association of Students of Architecture (NASA) in January 2007.[12]
The new logo of the institute was unveiled by alumni Nokia Former CEO Rajiv Suri during the institute's 2016 convocation.[13] It was designed by Kartikeya Rastogi, who was then a senior year Chemical Engineering undergraduate student.[14]
In July 2018 it was among the two private institutes to be decreed with Institute of Eminence.
Campus
MIT Manipal's campus is located 65 km (37 mi) north of Mangalore. The campus is located 3.5 km from Udupi's railway station and is spread over an area of 188 acres (76.0 ha) housing 10 academic buildings, and 22 residential buildings(known as blocks), with a total capacity of 6,080 inhabitants.[15]
MIT Manipal Campus
Kamath Circle has been renamed and renovated as Student Plaza with a two-floored Colosseum-like structure and a musical fountain at the center also containing a couple of general stores.[16]
The food court, with a seating capacity of 1200 people, caters to the food needs of about 840 people daily. A second food court was constructed in 2018 near the 16th and 17th Hostel Blocks.[17]
Apart from Food Court 1 and Food Court 2,there exists 2 other food courts known as Annapoorna Mess and Apporva Mess located near hostel block 10 and hostel block D respectively. New mess have been introduced like, Ananya mess in girls block 1 and 2, Ashraya mess in girls block 3 and 4, and Aditya mess in boys block 4 and 5.
Academics
Academic programs
Academic Block 1
MIT has been using a credit-based system since 2001, in which each course is assigned a number of credits.[7] The odd semester starts around the month of July and ends by December and the even semester starts around January and ends by May. Manipal Academy of Higher Education is accredited by the Government of India's National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) .[18]
MIT Manipal also offers the International Centre for Applied Sciences (ICAS) program, a unique transfer program that allows students to spend their first two years at ICAS, Manipal, and the subsequent two years at a university of their choice abroad.
Admissions to postgraduate programs are either on the basis of an entrance exam or the performance in an undergraduate degree program. All applicants are required to have appropriate bachelor's degrees.
The institute also offers Ph.D. programs on a full-time or part-time basis for suitably qualified candidates.
Admission to Manipal Institute of Technology is through the Manipal Entrance Test (MET), which replaced the Manipal University Online Entrance Test (MU OET) for 2019 and beyond and is carried out at centres across India. It is a computer-based exam and consists of 200 questions testing Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, English, and logical reasoning and spans a duration of 2 hours and 30 minutes. The test is for 800 marks, +4 for every correct answer and -1 for every wrong one. MAHE offers two opportunities for a student to write the entrance exam, subject to additional payment and availability of vacancies.[23] The format was changed and the test now has 60 questions and the total maximum marks are 240. Each MCQ (Multiple Choice Question) carries 4 marks with negative marking whereas each NAT (Numerical Answer Type) carries 4 marks with no negative marking.[24] Unlike other entrance exams, the computer-based exam scores are displayed immediately after the exam ends, with which one may appear for admission counselling.[25]
Research
The institute makes budgetary provisions for the maintenance of research equipment through capital allocation. An amount of ₹15 million was sanctioned to the institute in 2008–09 towards innovation. MITians have access to various journals and educational materials to facilitate research by students. Students of the institute take up summer internship as a part of their curriculum.[26] Several research programs in the areas of nanotechnology, nuclear engineering, VLSI design and pattern recognition are being pursued in the interdisciplinary labs under the institute's innovation centre. Manipal is known to take research quite seriously and professors are quite keen to work with enthusiastic students on various research projects.[26]
Student life
Student bodies
The oldest student organizations are the editorial board and the Student Council.
The Student Council, MIT Manipal is the apex student body of the institute, composed of elected student representatives. President chairs the Council followed by the General Secretary. The Cultural Secretary is overall in charge of all Cultural Clubs of the institute and is also the Convener of Revels, along with the Sports Secretary. Likewise, the Sports Secretary is responsible for all the sporting activities of the Institute and heads as well as coordinates with all the Sports Captains of various Sports Clubs and Teams of the institute. Similarly, Technical Secretary heads all the Technical Clubs and Placement Secretaries coordinate with the companies and students during the placement season.
Overall there are close to a hundred clubs and organizations in the institute. The clubs are completely run and managed by the students and they host a variety of events/ competitions throughout the year.[27] Technical Clubs like SAE-IM (Society of Automotive Engineers- India| Manipal), ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), IE-CSE, IE-Civil, IE-E&C, IE E&E, IE-Mechatronics, Cultural Clubs like- Goonj, the Hindi literary club, Blank-101, Comedy Club Manipal, λΔQ (The Literary, Debate, and Quiz Club), RED-X (The Socio-Adventure Club), and more clubs like Ada Dramatics, Aaina Dramatics and the Music and Fine Arts Club have won several awards at major cultural fests such as Unmaad, IIM Bangalore[28] and Mood Indigo, IIT Bombay.[29]
MIT Student Plaza drone viewMIT Student Plaza
The college has an official student-run media body, The MIT Post.[30] It was founded on 19 November 2014. The MIT Post keeps a record of all student activities on campus, including those of all other clubs and organizations.[31] Another prominent name is The Photography Club, Manipal[32] which is the official photography club of the college founded all the way back in 1967.
Teams from ManipalTech have won innovation and entrepreneurship competitions such as the GE Edison Innovation Challenge[33] and consecutive victories at the Schneider Electric India Innovation Challenge.[34]
The college has several technical clubs including international as well as national student organizations such as the ACM, IEEE, ISTE, IEMCT and ASME. These clubs are very active on campus and organize workshops and various other events on a regular basis.[35]
Formula Manipal is a student initiative aiming to conceive, design, fabricate, develop and compete with other Formula-style vehicles at International Formula Student events. They built a 600 cc race car that was selected to participate in the Formula SAE 2008 competition organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers held at Ferrari race track at Maranello in Italy, an international race car design competition which is attended by universities from across the world. In 2009, the team participated with the second prototype at FS UK, held at the Silverstone F1 Track.[36]
ThrustMIT is one of the country's first rocketry teams. The team aims to foster interest and innovation in the field of rocketry. The modus operandi at ThrustMIT involves providing team members with hands-on experience in this field, allowing them to improve and learn on the job, which ultimately aids them in supporting the team's endeavours.[37]
Project Manas is another initiative by students and is an AI robotics team that was founded in the year 2014. They have taken part in India's biggest driverless car challenge - "Spark the Rise" - organized by Mahindra. The team qualified for three stages and is one of the top 13 teams to qualify for the prototyping phase. The prototype is capable of detecting and navigating around pedestrians, a variety of traffic signs and signals, road and non-road regions, vehicles along with a wide range of other obstacles.[38]
AeroMIT is a student project aiming towards aeromodelling and drone research. They design and fabricate RC and autonomous aerial vehicles for competition as well as research purposes. The year 2019-20 was one of the most successful years for the team. They secured podium positions in national competitions like Aerophilia 2019 and Techfest, 2020. The team also secured World Rank 4 in their flagship competition SAE AeroDesign East 2020 held in Lakeland, Florida. Other than that, the team secured World Rank 1 in the category of Oral Presentation by scoring the highest points in the history of the competition and was also the only team to lift the maximum possible payload. Participating in competitions is not the only goal of the team; they also focus on various projects and research work.[39]
Mars Rover Manipal, one of the more recent endeavours by undergraduate students, is a multi-disciplinary team that designs and builds rovers for the exploration of extraterrestrial environments. They regularly compete in various competitions and have steadily improved their rankings at the University Rover Challenge held by The Mars Society USA, since they first entered in 2016. It is a premier robotics competition held annually every summer at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, USA.[40]
Cultural and sports festivals
MIT hosts one festival every semester. In even semesters, there is a cultural and sports festival, "Revels". The official theme of the 2024 Revels festival was 'Aarohan'. The name was inspired by the theme 'Aspiring to explore new boundaries of knowledge'.[41] In odd semesters, there is a technical festival, "Tech Tatva". These are student-organized fests, with participants from all over India and overseas. The students of the university, with some help from the administration, carry out the festivities on the campus. The entire process of managing and organizing the fest is handled by the students with the work being divided amongst various categories.[42] The 2024 Revels featured "Javed Ali", "Salim Sulaiman" and "Kr$na".
Controversies
In 2012, following aggressive protests by the students of the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), the director, Kum Kum Garg, resigned from her post. The protesting students had demanded the resignation of the director for her alleged insensitive remarks over the death of a student in a bus accident.[43]
In March 2020, MIT required students to download a software called PEXA Lite on their laptops, to conduct proctored end-semester exams. On installing the software, some students complained of their laptops slowing or crashing due to malware.[44]
In February 2021, the students of MIT were called back to campus for the offline end-semester examinations. But on 17 March, offline classes were cancelled due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases on campus. By the first week of April, over 1000 students of MIT were infected by the coronavirus due to poor social distancing and lax safety standards in the college.[45]
In the last week of May 2021, MIT released a revised schedule for the upcoming months which was criticised by students. On 8 June 2021, MIT cancelled the end-semester examinations and opted to prorate the marks based on previous semester performances.[46]
