A Congress resolution, the McPherson Committee and a Viceroy at Dhanbad: how the mining school became an IIT

Background

Jharkhand's coal country holds one of India's oldest technical institutions, the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) at Dhanbad. The demand goes back to a resolution of the Indian National Congress at its XVII Session, which asked that a Government College of Mining Engineering be set up somewhere in the country, on the lines of the Royal School of Mines in England and of mining colleges in Japan and elsewhere on the continent, since mines were then being placed under the supervision of mining experts. A committee of the Government of India under McPherson then recommended an institution for teaching mining and geology, and its report formed the main basis for establishing the school at Dhanbad. Lord Irwin, the Viceroy of the day, formally opened the Indian School of Mines on 9th December 1926, with Mining and Applied Geology as its disciplines, to meet the need for trained hands in the country's mining work. University standing came in 1967, when it was given the rank of a deemed to be university, under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956. Petroleum Engineering and Applied Geophysics were added later, and courses in computer science, mechanical, electrical, environmental, chemical and civil engineering followed over the decades. The institute today is constituted under the Institutes of Technology Act and is administered through the IIT Council, the apex body chaired by the Union Minister for Education.