IIT Kharagpur is located west of
Kolkata. The campus is located five kilometres away from
Kharagpur Railway Station in
West Midnapore district. The layout of the present campus and the design of the buildings were carried out by a group of engineers and architects under the guidance of
Werner M. Moser, a Swiss architect. The campus is residence to about 22,000 inhabitants. In 2015, IIT Kharagpur had about 605 faculty members, 1,933 employees and approximately 10,010 students living on the campus. The campus has a total of of roadways. The Institute plans to go Green by 2020. The 22 student hostels are located on either side of Scholars Avenue, which extends from the institute gate to the B. C. Roy Technology Hospital. The three earliest halls—Patel, Azad, and Nehru—together constitute the PAN loop or Old Campus, which is located just next to Scholar's Avenue. There are twelve hostels for undergraduate male students (MMM, LBS, RP, RK, MS, LLR, HJB, JCB, VS, Patel, Azad and Nehru) and two for undergraduate female students (SN/IG and MT). There are post-graduate hostels including four for women (RLB, Gokhle, Nivedita and SAM), two for research scholars (BCR and BRH), and a separate hostel for scholars from the armed forces. In addition to the main campus at Kharagpur, the institute has an extension centre at Kolkata to provide venues for continuing education programmes, distance learning courses, and guesthouse accommodation. The Kolkata extension centre at
Rajarhat is used to offer some full-time undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The Rajarhat campus houses 2,500 students. The institute's plan for a similar branch campus of in
Bhubaneswar was scrapped following rejection by the Union Human Resource and Development ministry. The
Ministry of Human Resource Development on 5 September 2019 awarded the "
Institute of Eminence" status to IIT Kharagpur along with four public institution in India, which will enable full autonomy and special incentives.
Academic buildings IIT Kharagpur has 19 academic departments, eight multi-disciplinary centres/schools, and 13 schools of excellence in addition to more than 25 central research and development units. Apart from the main building in the central academic complex, the Srinivasa Ramanujan Complex also has common academic facilities.
Takshashila houses the G. S. Sanyal School of Telecommunication, the School of Information Technology, the Computer and Informatics Centre, and has facilities for conducting lectures. The
Vikramshila Complex consists of four lecture halls, several seminar rooms, and the 850-seat Kalidas Auditorium. The School of Medical Science and Technology is housed in the basement of the Vikramshila building. The institute main building houses most of the administrative offices, the lecture halls, and two auditoriums on either side. The signage at the front displays the message, "Dedicated to the service of the nation." The tower of the main building has a steel tank with 10,000 imperial gallons of water capacity for emergency supply needs. The Netaji Auditorium in the main building is used for official functions and events, and doubles as a cinema theatre on weekend nights, showing films to the IIT community at subsidised rates. IIT Kharagpur's first library was located in a small room of the institute's Old Building (
Shaheed Bhawan). At the time of its opening in 1951, the library had a collection of 2,500 books. Now located in the main building of the institute, the Central Library is one of the largest of its type. Its collection includes over 350,000 books and documents, and it subscribes to more than 1,600 printed and online journals and conference proceedings. The library has six halls and a section exclusively for
SC and
ST students. The library's collection consists of books, reports, conference proceedings, back volumes of periodicals, standards, theses, micro-forms, DVDs, CD-ROMs, and audio-visual material. The library's transaction service is automated and online searches are possible through an
Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). The Electronic Library section has a collection of databases, video lectures and miscellaneous other resources. The
Nehru Museum of Science and Technology has over a hundred indoor exhibits that include technical models collected from institutions across India. The park outside the museum contains 14 open-air demonstrations and outdoor exhibits, including a fighter plane and a steam engine. The museum has an archive room, showing documents relating to the history of the institute and
West Midnapore district. The Rural Museum, located in the Rural Development Centre, has a collection of exhibits in local culture.
Civic amenities The institute campus has six guest houses, a civic hospital, four nationalised banks, four schools (Hijli High School,
Kendriya Vidyalaya, D.A.V Model School, and St. Agnes Branch School), a railway reservation counter and a police station. The campus has a water pumping station, electrical sub-station, telephone exchange, market, six restaurants, and a garbage disposal section for the daily needs of the residents. IIT Kharagpur is located just outside the town of Kharagpur, in the village of Hijli. Its civic amenities make it nearly self-sufficient with regards to the basic needs of the residents. As Kharagpur is a small town, there is limited direct interaction between the campus community and the town. There is also little employment opportunities for families of the faculty. Unlike some IITs (such as
IIT Bombay), IIT Kharagpur does not restrict the entry of outsiders into the campus. IIT Kharagpur provides much of its benefits to the local community through the Rural Development Centre (RDC) located in the campus. Established in 1975, the RDC helps the local community by developing customised technologies. The RDC also co-ordinates the
National Service Scheme (NSS) programs in IIT Kharagpur, with the members of NSS taking part in weekly community service activities such as sanitation, road construction, teaching and building educational models. In 2005, IIT Kharagpur started the construction of a boundary wall to ensure campus security, which is now complete. At present, mild restrictions apply on the entry of outsiders' vehicles. The boundary wall was opposed by the local community as it would hinder their access to amenities provided by the institute. Campus residents have also been denied direct access to the adjoining
Hijli railway station as a result of this wall. The local community opposed the construction of a
flyover from the railway station to the campus, stating that it would lead to a substantial loss of opportunity for the shops along the roads. However, upon completion, the Hijli road over-bridge has resulted in convenient transportation to the campus. The construction of the long flyover was approved by the
Indian Railways and
West Bengal state government, and was constructed for an estimated cost of .
Halls of residence IIT Kharagpur provides on-campus residential facilities to its students, research scholars, faculty members and many of its staff. The students live in hostels (referred to as
halls) throughout their stay in the IIT. Hostel rooms are wired to provide an internet connection, for which students pay a compulsory charge. Most rooms in the older
halls are designed to accommodate one student, but an increase in the number of incoming undergraduate students has led to shared rooms in the first two years. The Lal Bahadur Shastri Hall of Residence and newer blocks of some
halls now accommodate three students per room. The oldest Halls of Residence are located in the PAN Loop, named after the Patel, Azad, and Nehru Halls.
The halls of IIT Kharagpur are: Undergraduate students choose between the
National Cadet Corps (NCC),
National Service Scheme (NSS),
National Sports Organisation (NSO), or
National Cultural Appreciation (NCA) for their first two years of study. IIT Kharagpur has a range of sporting facilities including grounds for cricket, football, hockey, volleyball, lawn tennis, badminton (indoor and outdoor); a state-of-the-art athletics tracks; and swimming pools for aquatic events. Most hostels have their own dedicated sports grounds. The institute used to organise
Shaurya, an annual inter-collegiate sports and games meet in October, which was discontinued in 2012. ==Organisation and administration==