Background: In today’s era of preventive medicine, infection control practices hold the centre stage for prevention of Health care associated infection. Adequate knowledge and compliance of hand hygiene is undoubtedly the most essential component which needs to be instilled in all health care personals including medical undergraduate students. Objective: The present study aimed at assessing the knowledge and awareness of hand hygiene in students of a Medical college. Methodology: A cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted in a medical college teaching hospital and included students from I MBBS, II MBBS, III MBBS part I and II and also students undergoing internship in the hospital. Results and discussion: A total of 383 participated in the study and assessment of the students regarding their awareness showed that over all the awareness regarding the relevance of hand hygiene ranged between 39.2% and 89.2%. The knowledge aspect ranged from 36.6% to 64%. The study showed that overall the students were aware, but lacked knowledge in few important aspects of the laid down protocols of hand hygiene (80.5%vs 56.7%). Comparison of different batches showed a significant difference (p<0.05) in responses of various batches. The study results are in concordance with other studies in literature, where too a gap in knowledge has been realized. Conclusion: Need for introduction of hand hygiene practices in the early years of Medical graduate curriculum with adequate emphasis on all keys areas and thereafter a continued plan for educational and training program