Even though one-third of India's finest engineering colleges continue to be in south Indian states with 36 in Tamil Nadu itself, this number has slightly gone down compared to last year, according to the National Institute of Ranking Framework (NIRF) India Rankings 2021 released by the Ministry of Education on September 9.

The five south Indian states contribute 79 out of the 200 colleges in the ranking list, which is a dip from the 86 colleges in last year's rankings. The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT M) has managed to retain its position as India's top-ranked college for engineering since the year 2016.  

This year, 19 engineering colleges in the NIRF ranking list were from Karnataka as opposed to 21 last year, Andhra Pradesh had 10 colleges last year but it only has 6 on the list this year and four colleges are from Kerala as opposed to 6 colleges last year.

Four colleges from the south Indian states feature in the top 10 list. While IIT Hyderabad is ranked at number 8, it is soon followed by the National Institute of Technology in Tamil Nadu's Tiruchirappalli at number 9. At number 10 is the National Institute of Technology in Karnataka's Suratkal (NIT K). 

It is a commendable improvement for NIT K as the institute was far away from the top 10 rankings in 2019 as it ranked 21. It moved to number 13 last year and today it is one of the top 10 colleges for engineering in the country. 

From 2017 to 2019, Chennai's Anna University was amongst the top 10 engineering colleges in the country. But it has underperformed since last year's NIRF where it ranked 14 and now the varsity ranks 18 — still amongst the top 20 but no longer in the top 10 list.