REC

NIT Cailcut was previously known as REC Calicut.

The Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) were established by the central government to mimic the IITs at a regional level and act as benchmarks for the other colleges in that state. The admission used to be highly selective. Students topping the respective state's 12th board exam could be admitted at the REC of their state. Thus, 17 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. The government opened 9 RECs in 1960, 2 on average in each region, as follows:

Region	Regional Engineering Colleges (REC)
Eastern Region	Durgapur and Jamshedpur
Western Region	Nagpur, Surat, and Bhopal
Southern Region	Warangal and Surathkal
Northern Region	Srinagar and Allahabad

Later on, 6 more were added by 1967. The early 15 institutes were Srinagar, Warangal, Calicut, Durgapur, Kurukshetra, Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Nagpur, Rourkela, Surathkal, Surat, Tiruchirappalli, Bhopal, Allahabad, and Silchar. It established 2 more, one in Hamirpur in 1986, and another in Jalandhar in 1987.

The success of the technology-based industry led to high demand for technical and scientific education. Due to the enormous costs and infrastructure involved in creating globally respected Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), in 2002 Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Minister Murli Manohar Joshi decided to upgrade RECs to "National Institutes of Technology" (NITs) instead of creating IITs. The central government controls NITs and provides all funding. In 2002, all RECs became NITs.