The National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), situated at Surathkal near Mangaluru in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka, is a public technical university and one of the thirty-one National Institutes of Technology (NITs) in India. Originally established as the Karnataka Regional Engineering College (KREC), it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance under the National Institutes of Technology Act, 2007. The campus lies along the Arabian Sea coast on the Mangaluru–Udupi national highway, between the Surathkal railway station and the seafront.
| Name | National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal |
|---|---|
| Former name | Karnataka Regional Engineering College (KREC) |
| Type | Public technical university |
| Status | Institute of National Importance |
| Established | 1960 |
| Renamed as NIT | 2002 |
| Location | Surathkal, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India |
| Affiliation | Ministry of Education, Government of India |
| Campus | Coastal, on the Arabian Sea |
NITK was founded in 1960 as the Karnataka Regional Engineering College, one of a network of Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) set up jointly by the Government of India and state governments to expand access to engineering education across the country. The institute was jointly administered by the central government and the Government of Karnataka during its REC phase, with academic affiliation to the University of Mysore and later to Mangalore University.
The campus was developed on a coastal site at Surathkal, then a small town north of Mangaluru. The location was chosen for its proximity to the New Mangalore Port and to the regional industrial belt of coastal Karnataka.
In 2002, KREC was upgraded and renamed the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, becoming a wholly centrally funded institution under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now the Ministry of Education). With the enactment of the National Institutes of Technology Act in 2007, NITK was formally declared an Institute of National Importance, granting it the authority to award its own degrees and full administrative and academic autonomy.
NITK offers undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programmes through several departments organised broadly into engineering, sciences, humanities, social sciences and management. Engineering streams include civil, mechanical, electrical and electronics, electronics and communication, computer science, information technology, chemical, metallurgical and materials, and mining engineering. The institute also runs programmes in applied mechanics, water resources, marine and coastal engineering, and offers MSc programmes in physics, chemistry and mathematics, along with an MBA programme through its School of Management.
Admission to undergraduate B.Tech programmes is through the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) via the centralised Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) counselling. Postgraduate admissions are made primarily through GATE, CAT (for the MBA), JAM (for MSc) and similar national-level examinations.
The NITK campus occupies a large coastal tract at Surathkal, with academic blocks, residential hostels, faculty quarters, sports facilities, and a private beachfront. The campus has its own water supply and infrastructure, and lies adjacent to the Surathkal railway station on the Konkan Railway corridor and to NH 66.
As one of the older RECs and a founding member of the NIT system, NITK has played a significant role in technical education in southern India. It is consistently placed among the higher-ranked NITs in national rankings such as the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) released by the Ministry of Education. The institute's alumni are present across Indian and international industry, academia, and public service, and it maintains research collaborations with industries and laboratories in areas such as marine structures, materials, computing, and water resources.