its not about neeeded or not but make sure you maintain one as it wiould be further useful in projects and many more activities learn all the basics.downloading some programmes and labview suchkinds will be useful to u .

Being an ECE student you will definitely require laptop. Electronic and Communication engineering is the stream where you will desing Electronic equipment and circuit which requires programming.

Moreover in college they teach a programming language where you will need a laptop to code. Also you may require that for extracurricular tasks.

All the best