It was founded as Regional Engineering College Tiruchirappalli in 1964 by the governments of India and Tamil Nadu under the affiliation of the University of Madras.

[5] The institute is funded by the Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India; and focuses exclusively on engineering, management, science, technology, and architecture.

[4][3] The institute offers 10 bachelor's, 42 master's, and 17 doctoral programmes through its 17 academic departments and awards more than 2000 degrees annually.

Under his administration, the central government started fourteen regional engineering colleges (RECs) between 1959 and 1965 at several cities in India.

In the early 1980s, the state government began to find the logistics of controlling these colleges from Madras to be tedious and split the aegis into the Bharathidasan and Bharathiar universities for the Tiruchirappalli and Coimbatore areas, respectively.

In 2002, former minister of human resource development Murali Manohar Joshi decided to upgrade the RECs to NITs.

The institute's academic facilities are located in the southern half of the campus; these include the department buildings, laboratories and workshops, lecture halls, computer centres and the central library.

NIT Trichy has a modern central library with more than two and a half lakh of documents consisting of technical books, reports, standards, compact disks and back volumes of journals.

They are also holding membership with Developing Library Network, New Delhi and providing Inter-Library Loan services to the users.

Unlike the rest of the courses in the institute, DoMS follows a trimester pattern with a two-month compulsory internship at the end of the first year.

The goal of DEE is to create technologies and technical human resources to solve problems for a better energy and environmental future.

The Department has continuously worked towards a practical curriculum with a high degree of professional relevance, enabling students to take on real-world difficulties.

This has been done to fulfil the demands of industry, business, public and private organizations, academic institutions, and human services.

Since 2004, the Department has offered a full-fledged Ph.D. programme and has generated excellent research in more recent Humanities and Social Sciences fields.

The board of governors consists of the chairman and ten members, which include government, industry, alumni and faculty representation.

[60] NIT Trichy offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in disciplines spanning engineering, science, arts, architecture and management.

[62] Admission for Indian candidates to the undergraduate programmes is highly competitive and is based on the rank secured in the Joint Entrance Examination – Main (JEE Main) and selection through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) and Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB).

[62] To be eligible for admission to the postgraduate programmes, the candidate has to secure a minimum percentage or CGPA set by the institute or admission authorities of the government of India in the qualifying degree from a university or an institute recognized by the Association of Indian Universities or similar Indian body.

In addition, the institute's research community is actively involved in transforming unique concepts into products or processes, and it has several published and issued patents to its name.

The centre offers MS and PhD programmes and has signed MoUs with government agencies, public and private companies.

[110] The CoE in Manufacturing provides consulting services to businesses in the areas of automation, product development, process improvement, shop floor design, etc.

[112] The CoE in Advanced Manufacturing and Automation (CAMA) is a centre in the institute that offers technology support to businesses.

The S-TIC unites business, academia, and ISRO under one roof, enabling them to support projects related to research and development for the Indian Space Program.

All the necessary mentoring and support for mobilizing funds, creating access to markets and augmenting managerial skills are provided by the CEDI centre.

), blog hosting, providing short message services and now even the facility to check train reservation status.

Held every year since 1975 during the month of September, this event encompasses music, dance and literary competitions, with thousands of participants from colleges all over the country vying for the trophy.

[134] Pragyan, the ISO 9001 & 20121 certified annual international techno-management organization of the NIT Trichy has more than 47 events spanning across eight genres.

During Nittfest, departments square off against each other over four days to battle over various events like quizzes, debates, music, dance, drama, gaming, art etc.

Spread over two days, the symposiums usually include paper presentations, guest lectures, workshops and various other events pertaining to the central theme each department has decided on for the year.

[138] National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli alumni include chief executive officers and top executives of Fortune India 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies such as Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons;[139] Rajesh Gopinathan, former CEO and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services;[140] T. V. Narendran, CEO and managing director of Tata Steel;[141][142] K. R. Sridhar, CEO and founder of Bloom Energy[143] and R. Ravimohan, former executive director of Reliance Industries.