 Ten alumni have won the Padma awards and twenty-five alumni have won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology.The institute has produced seven chairmen of the Indian Railway Board, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, more than a hundred secretary-level officers in the Government of India, two presidents of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Governors of states of India, chairmen of University Grants Commission (India), six directors of the Indian Institutes of Technology, Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors of prominent Indian Universities, and presidents of Engineering and Scientific organizations like the Indian Institution of Engineers, the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian National Academy of Engineering.The institution has its origins in a class started in 1845 to train local youth in engineering to assist in public works then beginning.