Since I have friends from NIT Trichy, I can give you an insight into their ICE and Production course. The department of Production Engineering at NIT Trichy is better than ICE because of the following reasons. 

1. The future prospects of Production Engineering are quite better than what usually is in ICE. It clearly translates to Production engineering having greater scopes in terms of placements and higher education. Most essentially, Production engineering, as opposed to ICE, is more flexible toward aspects such as salary packages and different kinds of profiles from one firm to another, as well as fields of study in higher education.
    
2. The difference in the academic workload in the 2nd and 3rd years. In a nutshell, Production Engineering comes with a more exposed and forgiving schedule which helps provide an adequate amount of free time out of the routine. In this way, students can pursue extra-curricular interests. 

So, Production Engineering is several steps ahead of ICE at NIT Trichy.