trichy like other premier engineering institutes in the state national institute of technologytiruchirappalli which is in its 50th year has made its undergraduate programme more practical and diversified its postgraduate and research programmes earlier this institution like iitmadras or college of engineering at guindy was known more for its undergraduate programme but over time it has expanded its advanced programmes as well the college today boasts of postgraduate programmes in practically every field in which there is an undergraduate study over the years the college has started centres of excellence in energy environment electronic systems design and manufacturing corrosion and surface engineering and advanced materials faculty insist that the students are constantly exposed to practices in the industry as well cutting edge technology the college is a signatory to the washington accord a wellknown international accreditation programme for professional engineering academic degrees the college has also established stateoftheart videoconferencing facility that links all government engineering institutions through a highbandwidth internet connection the foundation stone of the institute was laid by then tamil nadu industries minister r venkatraman in 1964 on the campus near bhel what started with 120 students with three branches has now grown to 6000 students with 10 undergraduate programmes and 23 postgraduate programmes some 200 research scholars are today doing their phd in various fields established in the year 1964 as regional engineering college tiruchirappalli this institution was granted deemed university status with the approval of the ugcaicte and government of india in 2003 and renamed as national institute of technology the same yearp s manisundaram the first principal of the college served as the first vicechancellor of bharathidasan university the current director srinivasan sundarrajan says the institution focuses on the overall development of the students pragyanthe annual technomanagerial festival provides a platform to showcase their technical competence at the national level and also an opportunity to listen to nobel laureates in addition there are as many as 30 technical social and musical clubs which provide opportunities for cocurricular development of students festember the annual nationallevel cultural festival and nittfest an interdepartmental festival are important activities of the campus