Know about the first engineering college of West Bengal
It began in 1843-44, when Civil Engineering classes were introduced at Hindu College, Calcutta, to train engineers for the Public Works Department. A formal Civil Engineering College was established on November 24, 1856 at the Writers' Building in Calcutta. With the founding of the University of Calcutta in 1857, the college gained affiliation and, after a brief period under the Presidency College, it relocated to Shibpur, Howrah in 1880, becoming the Government College, Howrah. It soon added Mechanical Engineering and became fully residential by 1889.
Renamed Bengal Engineering College (BE College) in 1921, the institute grew rapidly, launching postgraduate and doctoral programmes by the 1950s, collaborating internationally — most notably with the University of Wisconsin — and establishing itself as a hub for advanced research.
In 1992, the Government of India granted Deemed University status to BE College, formally inaugurated in 1993 by President Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma. It became a full-fledged university in 2004, renamed Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU), Shibpur, introducing science programmes alongside engineering.
Finally, in March 2014, BESU was declared an Institute of National Importance by an Act of Parliament, becoming IIEST Shibpur — a premier national institution continuing a legacy of over 160 years in engineering education and research.
IIEST Shibpur is ranked at the 49th rank in the Ministry of Education's National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2024 engineering. It was ranked at 35th rank in 2023. In 2022, 2021 and 2020, the institute was ranked 40, 27 and 21, respectively.
The Institute offers BTech programmes in various engineering disciplines, such as Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, and Computer Science Engineering. IIEST provides MTech, MSc, MBA, and PhD programmes across multiple fields. IIEST Shibpur uses JEE Main scores for admission to undergraduate programmes.
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