History of RECs

During the second five-year plan (1956–60) in India, a number of industrial projects were contemplated. To ensure enough supply of trained personnel to meet the demand for these projects, a decision was taken to start the Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs), at the rate of one per each major state, which can churn out graduates with good engineering merit. Thus, seventeen RECs were established from 1959 onwards in each of the major states. Each college was a joint and cooperative enterprise of the central government and the concerned state government. All the 20 institutes now offer degree courses at various bachelors, masters and doctorate levels in various branches of engineering and technology. The entire non-recurring expenditure and expenditure for post-graduate courses during the REC times were borne by the central government. As regards in the REC system the entire recurring expenditure on undergraduate courses, the same was shared by the central government and the state government on 50:50 basis. However, after becoming National Institutes of Technology (NITs) the entire funding is managed by the centre now. REC system served well but as time passed some state governments shown lack of responsibility to take them in right direction. Following the long-standing demand for more Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) the then Minister of Human Resource Development Murali Manoher Joshi decided to upgrade the RECs to NITs. In 2003 all RECs were upgraded to NITs and central government took control to run these Institutes.

A large number of industrial projects were contemplated for the 2nd Five-Year Plan period (1956–61). In order to ensure the supply of trained personnel to man these projects, the Planning Commission, in September 1955 appointed an Engineering Personnel Committee (EPC), to undertake an overall assessment of the demand and supply position in respect of engineering personnel-graduates and diploma-holders-during the 2nd Plan period and to recommend the extent to which facilities for technical education should be expanded. The EPC has estimated that by 1960-61, there would be a large gap in the supply position and the shortage will be of the order of 1,800 engineering graduates and 8,000 diploma-holders. For fulfilling the recommendations of the EPC, a scheme was formulated for :

The Government of India decided to implement the first part of the EPC recommendations in 1957. As regards the establishment of the new institutions, it was decided that the matter should be re- examined in the light of the following considerations :

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