List of Indian engineering colleges before Independence

The impulse for creation of centers of technical training came from the British rulers of India, and it arose out of the necessity for the training of overseers for construction and maintenance of public buildings, roads, canals, and ports, and for the training of artisans and craftsmen for the use of instruments, and apparatus needed for the army, the navy, and the survey department.While superintending engineers were mostly recruited from Britain, lower grades-craftsmen, artisans and sub-overseers who were recruited locally. The necessity to make them more efficient, led to the establishment of industrial schools attached to the Indian Ordnance Factories and other engineering establishments. The first such industrial school was established at Guindy, Madras, in 1794, attached to the Gun Carriage Factory. This industrial school became ultimately the Guindy College of Engineering (College of Engineering, Guindy) and affiliated to the Madras University in 1858.

The first engineering college was established in the U.P. in 1847 for the training of Civil Engineers at Roorkee, Thomason College (which later become IIT Roorkee), which made use of the large workshops and public buildings there that were erected for the Upper Ganges Canal.In pursuance of the Government policy, three Engineering Colleges were opened by about 1856 in the three Presidencies. In Bengal, a College called the Calcutta College of Civil Engineering was opened at the Writers' Buildings in November 1856.In Bombay,the overseers' school at Pune eventually became the Pune College of Engineering and affiliated to the Bombay University in 1858.In the Madras Presidency, the industrial school attached to the Gun Carriage Factory became ultimately the Guindy College of Engineering and affiliated to the Madras University (1858). British opened Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur for chemical sciences in 1921 in then United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh. Indian School Of Mines, Dhanbad was established by British Indian Government on the lines of the Royal School of Mines - London, and was formally opened on 9 December 1926 by Lord Irwin, the then Viceroy of India.The PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh was originally established as Mugalpura Engineering College at Lahore (now in Pakistan) on November 9, 1921. The name of the college was later changed to Maclagan Engineering College on March 19, 1924.^[1]

In 1947 when India became independent, there were 36 institutions for first-degree engineering education, with an annual intake of about 2500 students.^[2]

Engineering college	Location	Established	Remarks
Thomason College of Civil Engineering	Roorkee, Uttarakhand	1847[2]
Bengal Engineering College	Shibpur, West Bengal	1856[2]
College of Engineering, Pune	Pune	1856
College of Engineering, Guindy	Madras	1858^[A]	Started as survey school in May 1749.[2] Upgraded to an engineering college in 1858.
national institute of technology,patna	patna	1886		Indian Institute of Science(Tata Institute)	Bangalore	1911
College of Engineering and Technology, Jadavpur	Jadavpur, Calcutta	1912[3]
College of Engineering, Bangalore	Bangalore	1917[4]	–
Banaras Engineering College, BHU	Varanasi	1919
Harcourt Butler Technological Institute(HBTI)	Kanpur	1921
Indian School Of Mines, Jharkhand	Dhanbad	1926
College of Engineering, Bihar	Patna	1936^[A]	Established as a survey training school in 1886. In 2004 the government of India upgraded the college to National Institutes of Technology status
College of Engineering, Trivandrum	Trivandrum	1939[5]
College of Engineering, Aligarh	Aligarh	1939[2]
Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute	Bombay	1946^[A]	Established as a diploma school in 1887
College of Engineering (Annamalai)	-	1945[2]
College of Engineering, Calcutta	Calcutta	1946[2]
B M S College of Engineering	Bangalore	1946	India's first private engineering college
Birla College of Engineering	Pilani	1946[2][6]
Arthur Hope College of Technology, Coimbatore	Coimbatore	1945
Government Engineering College, Jabalpur	Jabalpur	7 July 1947

^A Raised to degree standard (college/university).

References

1. "About PEC". Retrieved 2015-03-05.
2. Report of the University Education Commission (Dec 48 – Aug 49) (PDF) (Report). I (First Reprint ed.). Ministry of Education and Culture, Government of India, New Delhi (Publication No. 606). 1962.
3. "Department of Chemical Engineering, Jadavpur University".
4. "About UVCE".
5. "About CET".
6. "BITS Facts".