Both the colleges are equally good but you should go for NIT Surathkal because it is a well-established institute and has a greater alumni background. It is one of the top NITs which are better than a new IIT. IIT Bhubaneswar is a new IIT therefore it lacks proper infrastructure, alumni, and faculty. 

On the other hand, NIT Surathkal is old and has proper faculty and alumni which is a plus point. The average package at NIT Surathkal was 11.90 LPA for M.Tech and 11.44 LPA at IIT Bhubaneswar. In 2019,  there was a 69% placement for M.Tech students in IIT Bhubaneswar. M.Tech is considered a dead course in India because it lacks job options. But it is up to you, what you do with your post-grad degree. Both colleges will provide you a great number of opportunities. 

College life of both the colleges is great but there is one thing that NIT Surathkal has that no other college in India has and that is it has an own beach. Environment wise both colleges are good. NIT Surathkal hosts the second biggest fest in south India called Incident. 

Although the IIT tag offers certain advantages, you should choose NIT Surathkal because of its experienced faculty and better opportunities it can provide.
 

Question papers from previous years suggest the M.Tech admission test at IIT Bhubaneswar in civil engineering follows the same syllabus as GATE. In the written examination, there are mostly conceptual questions from core subjects as well as questions from mathematics and aptitude.

So, it would be wise to prepare ahead of time by solving all the previous year’s question papers and also study the basics of all the subjects side by side. But as it is IIT, there is no boundary of the questions. So, cover your basics thoroughly.

Results of the admission test are declared within 1 hour of the exam. If you are selected, you need to get through document verification and an interview to get enrolled. Mostly, interviews are purely technical and questions are asked to test the basics concepts. The interview takes around 15 mins maximum and at least 3 Interviewers will be present in the interview board.

IIT Bhubaneswar offers a decent M.Tech in the CE program. The Civil Engineering department has experienced professors from the field background. Recently, it has signed MoU with many universities for purposes like research and student exchange. The institute also collaborates with foreign universities such as the University of Warwick, University of Southampton, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, University of Western Ontario, University of New York, University of North Dakota USA, and McGill University. This will give the students an excellent internship and research opportunities.

Past placement reports reveal that IIT Bhubaneswar has witnessed around 60% of M.Tech placement. Companies like Adobe, Amazon, Accenture, Affine Analytics, HCL, HPCL, IOCL, ISRO, Ittiam, Infosys, KIIT, Go-Jek, Goldman Sachs, and many others visited the campus for recruitment. The average domestic CTC offered in 2019 was INR 11.44 LPA whereas the highest domestic CTC went up to as much as 39 Lakhs per annum. PSU’s like ISRO, IOCL, NCCBM also participated in the placement to recruit students. A popular belief is that most of the IIT fail to offer core placement for civil engineering students in India. This is not the case for IIT Bhubaneswar as it offers plenty of core placement opportunities. 

IIT Bhubaneswar is a good institution to pursue M.Tech in CE from both in academics and placements.