One of my friends secured an AIR (All India Rank) of 7,000 in JEE Main 2017 and obtained a seat in NIT Surat in CSE. It is a good option since the institute is well renowned. More than that, he also decided to visit DA-IICT, Gandhinagar. 

Here is his experience of DA-IICT, Gandhinagar with better references - 

1. The professors are well experienced and have Ph.D. from reputed universities. Several faculty members received prestigious awards from being a secretary of IEEE to Padma Shri.
2. The course curriculum of the institute is dynamic and specialized. It is updated from time to time, to keep industry-relevant.
3. DA-IICT selects only about 350 candidates from the total number of students in B.Tech. They get selected for GSOC (which is, Google Summer of Code) every single year in large quarters.
4. The coding culture of DA-IICT is equally accomplished as is in IIIT Hyderabad and IITs. There are several ACM-ICPC World Finalists from DA-IICT. Apparently, unlike other well-reputed universities, DA-IICT students are passionate about coding.
    

To support the answer, here is a table that distinguishes both of them,

Although, you should choose according to your subject preference.

I have a close friend who studied from here, according to her experience, the preference order for branches at NIT Surathkal among students is as follows. 

CS>Mech>Electrical~ECE

ECE - Highlights:

• Faculty- The lecturers are helpful and knowledgeable. But the faculty for other branches is better than ECE. Students aiming for CGPA above 9 should work hard.
• Subjects- The subjects covered in the course are quite interesting. You will have a chance to core electronics, communication, programming, and the electrical side.
• Placements- There is no big core company for ECE grad. in Surat, still, the on-campus placements are fine. John Deere, Master Card, and Airtel, and some software companies like JPMC, Carwale, etc are some of the recruiters for this course.

The main reason for ECE being behind Mechanical is top-quality professors, core companies, being one of the oldest branches & huge class strength. ECE is not behind mechanical but mechanical is way ahead of ECE in SVNIT.

Statistics-

There are definitely a few shortcomings for the ECE branch, but it is still ECE from NIT Surat. 

It may sound a bit philosophical, but it is the truth. A department is never the worst or best, it is the student who can be termed as such. 

These departments can not compete against each other because only when each one of them works as a team, an invention is born. When five fingers of your hand work together, only then can you achieve something. Even in terms of monetary funding, one can not assess a department. If one’s project is worthy of recognition and funding, one will get it. For this, the department can not be held responsible.

Each department of SVNIT will provide you with a wonderful platform, but the results will have to come from your side. 

According to my friends at SVNIT, hostel food is extremely monotonous. It is mostly comprised of Gujarati dishes, which are not liked by them. The points below are some of the key highlights of the hostel mess food at SVNIT.

• The messes in SVNIT are operated by different private contractors and so, the quality of food varies with different hostels. 
• The contractors use their tricks as far as possible to make maximum profits, degrading the quality of food.
• There is a very limited choice of meals in SVNIT and students have to eat what is served to them. 
• Being in Gujarat, there are very few non-veg meals.
• Every alternate Sunday is an off day for the hostel mess and students can go to restaurants or eat street food. 
• Outside the campus, there is a lot of variety in food.
• Seniors are the best people to ask for good food destinations.

The quality of mess food in the hostels of SVNIT is quite evident from the above points, which is average in quality and not satisfactory to most students.

Placement at SVNIT Surat is great as informed by some of my friends studying there. Here are the recent placement highlights for SVNIT Surat. 

• The highest package offered here is 37.50 LPA while the average CTC ranges from 4-7 LPA.
• In order to get a placement to try to secure a CGPA pointer of above 6.5 by the end of your degree. It's safe if your CGPA is 7 and above. One of the best ways is to do that, get a good pointer in the first year (8 and above), and then continue to secure above 6.5 to keep it above 7. 
• Try to gain all your basic knowledge in all the mechanical subjects on point. This will surely help you out in technical interviews. 
• If you truly have the interest but don't have a good CGPA pointer, then it will be very hard to qualify for placements, and you will regret it later on. Students with marks 60% above can apply, but the final shortlist will only have people with marks above 65%-70% depending on the people applied. 
• Participate in a decent amount of co-curricular activities. You need to make sure that you know a lot about the core concepts about the subjects of your interest. 

Obviously, the placements are great because of the NIT tag, but it will be of no use if you hold a second-class degree, with a lot of back papers. So, I would like to advise you to just focus on your studies.