A campus of 1055 acres and a ten-year American tie-up: the first-generation IIT at Kanpur

Background

The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur describes itself as established in 1959 and as one of the first generation IITs set up by the Government of India. The statement of objects and reasons printed with the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 instead says the institutes at Bombay, Madras and Kanpur were started in 1958, 1959 and 1960 respectively, so the two records differ on the Kanpur year. That Act declares the institutes it covers, Kanpur among them, to be institutions of national importance, and gives each of them a Board of Governors and a Senate. The Institute lists a campus of 1055 acres on which nearly all its students live, and a faculty strength of 570. Its motto is तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय, transliterated as Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya and translated as Lead me from darkness to light. From 1962 the Institute ran the Kanpur Indo-American Programme, under which it received technical assistance from a consortium of nine leading institutions in the United States. That programme ran until 1972 and has since ended. The Institute marked its 67th Foundation Day at Kanpur this month, honouring 23 recipients across four award categories.