The foundation stone for Karnataka Regional Engineering College (KREC) was laid on 6 August 1960,[2] at Surathkal. Srinivas Mallya and V. Kudva and the area is now called Srinivasnagar in his honour. KREC began with three under-graduate courses in engineering: Mechanical, Electrical, and Civil, with affiliation to the University of Mysore. 1965 saw the beginning of under-graduate courses in Chemic
al and Metallurgical Engineering. In 1966, the college started its first post-graduate course in Marine Structures and Industrial Structures, followed by post-graduate courses in Industrial Electronics (1969), Heat Power (1971), Hydraulics and Water Resources (1971), Chemical Plant Design Engineering (1971) and Process Metallurgy (1972). More under-graduate engineering courses were added later: Electronics and Communication Engineering (1971), Mining Engineering (1984), Computer Engineering (1986) and information technology (2000). In 1980, KREC came under the affiliation of Mangalore University, and the five-year under-graduate courses were shortened to four-years. On 26 June 2002, it was elevated to the status of a National Institute of Technology and has been called NIT Karnataka (NITK) ever since. It is now a Deemed University. NITK celebrated its 50th Institute Foundation day on 6 August 2009. The year long Golden Jubilee celebrations were inaugurated on 10 August 2009.
