The Institute was established on November 1, 1960 under the 'Open Door' policy of the Government of India, by the Maharaja Jiwajirao Education Society, Vidisha with a donation from the Gangajali Trust Fund of the Scindias, erstwhile rulers of the Gwalior state and commitment of non-recurring and recurring grants from the Government of India and the Government of Madhya Pradesh in agreed proportions. However, the Government of Madhya Pradesh had undertaken to meet the entire non-recurring and recurring deficit of the Institute budget for approved programs after the first five years of establishment of the Institute.

The Institute started with a total intake of 120 students per year in the three major disciplines of engineering, namely, Civil, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. It was affiliated to the Vikram University Ujjain to which the three other colleges in the region, namely, MACT Bhopal, SGSITS Indore and MITS Gwalior were affiliated at that time. After the creation of the Bhopal University at Bhopal, now renamed Barkatullah Vishwavidyalaya, the Institute was affiliated to it along with MACT Bhopal. 

At present this institute has an intake capacity of 480 in various courses at U.G. Level and 415 in P.G. and other courses, affiliated to Rajiv Gandhi Univ. of Technology at Bhopal. About 2000 students are presently enrolled in the institute.

The Institute is located in Vidisha in the heartland of Madhya Pradesh, just 54 km by rail from the state capital of Bhopal, on the Delhi-Madras, Delhi-Bombay main line with most of the trains, including fast and super-fast ones, having a stop. The town, a District Head Quarters is also otherwise well connected  by road to other important cities and towns of the State. A town of great antiquity and immense historical and archaeological importance, it is strewn with several famous monuments in its immediate vicinity, such as the Stupas of Sanchi, the Udaigiri Caves, the Udayeshwar temple in Udaipur village, the Mala Devi temple in Gyaraspur and the Heliodorus Pillar and Vijayamandir on the outskirts of the town of Vidisha.   The Institute was named after emperor Ashoka the Great, who was Governor of emperor Chandragupta Maurya in Ujjain and Vidisha and married the daughter of a businessman of Vidisha. Prince Mahendra and Princess Sanghamitra, born from this wedlock later went to Ceylon as emissaries of Buddhism. The College campus, a few minutes walk from the Railway Station is situated in the Civil Lines area with the Industrial Estate nearby, spreading over 85 acres of land with well maintained roads and approaches, playgrounds and  gardens etc. It has its own tube-well based water supply and electric distribution through an H.T. substation.