For more than a decade the seven elite Indian institutes of technology (IITs) have been churning out world-class computer whiz-kids to man the booming information technology industry.

IITians, as their graduates are known, are renowned as among the most brilliant and hardworking in the world.

But one IIT has exposed a darker side to India’s high-tech elite by restricting access to the internet in an attempt to make students more sociable after a series of campus suicides.

IIT Bombay banned internet use in its 13 student hostels from 11.30pm to 12.30pm from the start of this week, according to university officials. They said that an alarming number of its 5,000 students had become addicted to gaming, blogging, file-sharing and online movies and were showing up late for classes or sleeping through them.

At the same time the number of students participating in sports, cultural events and other extracurricular activities had dropped dramatically since free internet access was provided in hostels. “When we tried to figure out the cause of this problem, it didn’t take us long to find that these students locked themselves in the confines of their rooms,” Prakash Gopalan, the dean of student affairs at IIT Bombay, said.

“If we can say that imposing a ban on alcohol, banned substances and tobacco is right, why make a hype about constraining the use of internet which is becoming addiction in itself?” The IITs were designed to develop a skilled labour force of scientists and engineers after India won independence from Britain in 1947.

Today they are rated among the best engineering schools in the world and their alumni include the founders of Infosys and Sun Microsystems.

But the seven schools in Bombay, Delhi, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Madras, Kanpur and Roorkee are also renowned for their demanding curriculums and intensely competitive and austere campuses. There have been at least nine suicides at IITs over the past five years and dozens more attempts.

Most are thought to have been caused by pressure from peers or parents, who pay an average of 50,000 rupees (£580) a year in fees per student. But the death of Vijay Nukala, a 22-year-old IIT Bombay physics student who hanged himself in his hostel room in 2005, has been linked to excessive computer use.

Several other IITs are now considering similar bans and other measures to lure students away from their computers. “We’ll keep a close eye on this experiment,” said Professor Anurag Sharma, the dean of students’ welfare at IIT Delhi. He said that IIT Delhi had organised seminars, quiz nights and cultural festivals to try to curb internet use.

IIT Kanpur has also been trying to encourage students to participate more in extracurricular activities, according to Prawal Sinha, the dean of student affairs. But he doubted that a ban would be effective among such tech-savvy students. “This has to come through self-restraint,” he said.

“Who are they to tell us how to live our lives?” said one student, who identified himself only as Siddhartha. “Of course gaming addiction is a problem, but what if we need to do vital research late at night?”

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