(A note on terms used below: "IIT" stands for **Indian Institute** of **Technology**, a network of public engineering institutes in **India** overseen by the Union **Ministry** of Education, whose minister sits as ex officio chairperson of the IIT Council ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology)). "**Madras**" is the former name of Chennai, capital of **Tamil Nadu**, and "**Kharagpur**" is a town in West Bengal — the two are separate campuses, not to be confused with **Delhi**, home to a third, separate IIT. "**Engineering**" here refers to the broad NIRF ranking category both institutes are judged in.)
Quick Verdict
On faculty and academics specifically, IIT Madras holds the edge on national rankings and research-output metrics, while IIT Kharagpur wins on sheer academic breadth — more departments, more schools, and a larger faculty headcount by raw count. If you want the institute ranked higher for teaching, research, and perception nationally, IIT Madras is the safer pick; if you want the widest range of academic disciplines under one roof, including a law school and a business school unusual for an engineering institute, IIT Kharagpur has the edge.
Snapshot
| Metric | IIT Madras | IIT Kharagpur |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1959 (source) | 1951 — the first IIT, built on the site of the Hijli Detention Camp (source) |
| NIRF Overall Rank 2025 | 1 (score 87.31) (source) | 6 (score 73.99) (source) |
| NIRF Engineering Rank (per comparison sites) | 1 (source) | 5 (source) |
| NIRF 2025 Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR) score | 90.58 (source) | 77.73 (source) |
| NIRF 2025 Research & Professional Practice (RPC) score | 88.02 (source) | 71.21 (source) |
| Faculty count | 674, per Wikipedia's IIT-system table (source); IIT Madras's own site separately states 591 faculty (source) | 928 (source) |
| Student count | 10,238 (source) | 15,862 (source) |
| Annual budget | ₹996 crore (~US$100 million) (source) | ₹1,302.45 crore (~US$140 million) (source) |
| Academic breadth | ~12 undergraduate disciplines — most focused engineering depth (source) | 19+ academic departments and 13 schools/centres, including a dedicated law school and business school (source) |
Detailed Analysis
On the metrics that most directly measure teaching and research quality, IIT Madras is ahead. In the official NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) 2025 Overall rankings, IIT Madras is ranked 1st nationally with a score of 87.31, built on especially strong Teaching, Learning & Resources (90.58) and Research & Professional Practice (88.02) sub-scores (source). IIT Kharagpur ranks 6th overall with a score of 73.99, with lower TLR (77.73) and RPC (71.21) sub-scores in the same official dataset (source). Separate comparison sites report IIT Kharagpur's NIRF Engineering-category rank as 5th against IIT Madras's 1st — a different, narrower ranking than the Overall table above, so the two numbers (6th overall vs. 5th in Engineering) are not a contradiction, just different rankings measuring different things (source, source).
IIT Kharagpur, as the first IIT — founded in May 1950 at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp and formally inaugurated on 18 August 1951 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, with Institute-of-National-Importance status conferred by an Act of Parliament in 1956 — has had the longest runway to build out academic infrastructure, and it shows in breadth rather than rankings (source). It offers 19+ academic departments across 13 schools and centres, including the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (the only law school among the IITs), the Vinod Gupta School of Management, and a Naval Architecture/Ocean Engineering program — disciplines well outside a typical engineering institute's scope (source). By raw faculty headcount, IIT Kharagpur also has more instructors on paper: 928 versus IIT Madras's 674, alongside a larger student body of 15,862 versus 10,238 (source).
IIT Madras, founded in 1959 as one of the four campuses set up on the Sarkar Committee's recommendation, takes the opposite approach: a narrower, more focused set of roughly 12 undergraduate disciplines, concentrated on engineering and research depth rather than breadth (source, source). Its own institutional figures (as published on its website) list 591 faculty, 2,963 PhD research scholars, 746 MS research scholars, and 829 ongoing research projects — a research-scholar-heavy profile consistent with its top RPC score in the NIRF data above (source). Note that this 591 figure conflicts with the 674 faculty count listed for IIT Madras in the Wikipedia IIT-system table; both are cited here because we can't independently confirm which is more current, so treat "IIT Madras faculty count" as somewhere in the 591–674 range depending on source and date, rather than a single fixed number (source, source).
Budget figures track the faculty-and-student-headcount gap: IIT Kharagpur's annual budget of ₹1,302.45 crore is larger than IIT Madras's ₹996 crore, consistent with running a bigger, broader institution (source). One further, unquantified data point favors IIT Madras: a source comparing the two institutes states plainly that "IIT Madras has more advanced research facilities than IIT KGP," though no specific metric backs that claim up (source).
Verdict
Winner: IIT Madras, on the strength of its #1 NIRF Overall rank and clearly higher Teaching-Learning and Research sub-scores in the 2025 official NIRF data. Runner-up: IIT Kharagpur, which is the older, larger, and more academically diverse institution by department count and faculty headcount. Pick IIT Kharagpur over IIT Madras on this axis specifically if breadth of academic options matters to you more than national ranking — for example, if you're interested in a discipline IIT Madras simply doesn't offer, such as intellectual property law, management, or naval architecture, all of which exist at IIT Kharagpur but not at IIT Madras per the sourced data.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Which IIT has more faculty members, Madras or Kharagpur?
A: By the Wikipedia IIT-system table, IIT Kharagpur has more (928) than IIT Madras (674); IIT Madras's own site separately reports 591, so the exact IIT Madras figure varies by source (source, source).
Q: Which institute ranks higher in NIRF 2025?
A: IIT Madras, ranked 1st overall nationally versus IIT Kharagpur's 6th, per the official NIRF 2025 Overall Ranking data (source).
Q: Is IIT Kharagpur older than IIT Madras?
A: Yes — IIT Kharagpur was founded in 1951 as the first IIT, eight years before IIT Madras was established in 1959 (source).
Q: Does IIT Kharagpur offer non-engineering academic programs?
A: Yes — it runs the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (the only law school among the IITs) and the Vinod Gupta School of Management, alongside 19+ engineering and science departments (source).
Q: Which institute has a bigger research output?
A: The sourced NIRF data shows IIT Madras with a higher Research & Professional Practice (RPC) sub-score (88.02 vs. 71.21) in 2025, and IIT Madras's own site cites 2,963 PhD scholars and 829 active research projects; no equivalent detailed research-project count was available for IIT Kharagpur in the researched facts (source, source).
Q: Which institute has a larger annual budget?
A: IIT Kharagpur, at ₹1,302.45 crore versus IIT Madras's ₹996 crore (source).
Q: How many undergraduate disciplines does each institute offer?
A: IIT Madras offers around 12 undergraduate disciplines, focused mainly on engineering; IIT Kharagpur offers a broader 19+ departments across 13 schools and centres (source).
Related
For the complete picture beyond Faculty and Academics — placements, academics, campus life, and more — see the full IIT Madras vs IIT Kharagpur comparison.