Overview

Founded in May, 1856, the Department of Civil Engineering, as old as the Bengal Engineering College itself, is the 149 years old Engineering Department. The Department was, originally established as the Civil Engineering College, Calcutta with the object of imparting training to the personnel in the field of Civil Engineering for fulfillment of the need of the Public Works Department of the Government of India. Since then it has been striving to develop and maintain a glorious national tradition of producing quality Civil Engineers for the country. In course of time the Civil Engineering College was upgraded to the status of a full-fledged Government Engineering College with various disciplines, and renamed as the Bengal Engineering College. Then it was upgraded to Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur.Presently, the institute has been converted to an Institute of National Importance and named as IIEST Shibpur.

The Civil Engineering department, at present, provides facilities for research and development in the following broad areas:

• Structural Engineering
• Geo-technical Engineering
• Water Resources Engineering
• Environmental Engineering
• Transportation Engineering

The Department has been associated with various sponsored projects in the above fields. It is one of the Government of India recognized Quality Improved Programme Centres and associated with topical research and development activities. The Department undertakes sponsored research from the AICTE, MHRD, UGO, CSIR etc. Besides the normal 4-semester day time P.G. Course the department also runs 6-semester self-financing P.G. Course in Structural, Geo-technical and Environmental Engineering in the evening for working engineers.

The department lends support to the collaborative project, seminars, workshop and also associates itself in different consultancy activities like design, detailing, quality control, project management, etc. to meet the challenges of both private and public sector projects. This department has made significant contribution in removal of arsenic from ground water. The age old prestigious department has stood the test of time, to bring home to the students, the scholar, the patrons and all concerned the fruits of development of Science and Technology and to enable them to face any challenge anywhere in the field of Civil Engineering.

Milestones

• Started as Civil Engineering College on 24^th November 1856, in the premises of the Writers’ Buildings, Calcutta
• First Degree Examination in 1864
• First Post Graduate Course introduced in 1954 (first time in India)
• Faculty exchange program with University of Wisconsin in 1954
• Had the distinction of having pioneers in Engineering like Prof. Gerald Pickette, Prof. James R. Villemonte, Prof. Paul Anderson, R.L. Daugherty, Prof. A.C. Ingersoll, as visiting faculty members under the TMC scheme with USA.
• Selected as Teachers’ Training Institute Centre in 1959
• First PhD in Engineering in 1962
• QIP Centre for M.E. (Civil) in 1990
• QIP Centre for PhD (Civil) in 2006
• In 2005 the Department was recognized as one of the State Technical    Agencies (STA) under the Pradhan Mantri Gram SadakYojona
• In 2007 the Department celebrated its 150^th Anniversary by organizing an International Conference on Civil Engineering in the New Millennium: Opportunities and Challenges.
• In 2008 the School of Disaster Mitigation Engineering was established with initiative from this Department.
• In 2008 the Advanced Centre for Environment and Water Resources Engineering was established in collaboration with Queen’s University, Belfast.