The Indian Institute of Technology Madras belongs to the genre of new generation institutes of national importance in higher education in the field of Technology and Science. The institute has grown from strength to strength ever since it obtained its charter from the Parliament of India in 1961 and has established itself as a premier centre for education, research, consultancy and technological/scientific development. It all began in the year 1956 when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, was on an official visit to West Germany and was offered assistance by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, to set up a higher technological institute in India. This resulted in the signing of the first Indo-German Agreement in Bonn in 1958, for the establishment of an Indian Institute of Technology at Madras, with assistance from Germany in terms of faculty, technical staff and equipment.
The institute has sixteen departments, which offer undergraduate and post-graduate courses in various disciplines of engineering and pure sciences. The Central Library and Computer Centre of the institute are well equipped to fulfill the needs of the faculty and students. There are many advanced research centres in the institute having excellent facilities for carrying out research in frontier areas of science and technology. The institute has about 400 faculty, 4800 students and 900 administrative and support staff.
The institute with a self contained beautiful campus of 630 acres is located in South Chennai, on Sardar Patel Road. It is at a distance of about 14 kilometres from the Central Railway Station as well as from the Airport, and is well connected with buses to the city.

IITs must seek through their research activities to create an atmosphere of intellectual excitement , a climate of inquiry and innovation in which a student develops a consuming interest for understanding issues of his own volition.

	Institute Merit-cum-Means Scholarship
	Institute Free Studentship
	Institute Notional Prize
	Institute SC/ST Scholarship
	Girish Ready Scholarship
	Sri V Ranga Raju Memorial scholarship
	Prof. Narasimhan Fellowship
	SAIL Scholarship for SC/ST
	Pratibha Scholarship of Govt. of Andhra Pradesh
	Aditya Birla Scholarship

The Institute has two guest houses within the campus. The guest house near the Admin Building is called the Bose-Einstein Guest House and the guest house in the hostel zone is called the Taramani Guest House. The Bose-Einstein Guest House has altogether 18 A/c Suites with a telephone and a TV in each room. VIPs, Institute guests and invited guests are usually accommodated here.
The Taramani Guest House has 83 rooms in total. Out of which 18 are Suites, 29 air-conditioned rooms and 36 non-airconditioned rooms. Housed in an imposing double storeyed building and located at a central place, TGH provides boarding and lodging facilities for the Institute guests and Visitors, newly appointed faculty, staff members, delegates and participants attending various conferences, seminars, symposia and workshops. TGH is operated as a non-profit activity to mainly support the academic and research activity on the campus with a homely atmosphere and ambiance traditionally acclaimed for its environs of hygiene and food of homely relish and richness.