I was going through the latest issue of the Outlook magazine and it ranks the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras at No. 4 in the country amongst all engineering colleges. But, IIT Madras ranks no.1 in Mechanical Engineering and No. 2 in Civil Engineering.

What is more interesting is the fact that only IIT Madras and no other IIT in the country attracts industry-sponsored research that matches the Government efforts. What it means is most of the IIT’s in the country are happy in getting Government funding and not doing enough to attract grants from the private sector through research.

Let us look at the figures. In 2005-06, IIT Delhi attracted a mere Rs.33.36 lakh from the industry, when compared to Rs. 27.2 crores from the Government. IIT Kanpur Rs.2.15 crore and Rs. 88.2 crores. The figures for the others are also similar. Except for IIT Madras, which has managed to attract a whopping Rs. 10.35 crores for sponsored research from the industry and Rs. 24.65 crores from the Government. And the number of private sector projects have gone up from 1,342 in 2002-03 to about 2,465 in 2004-05.

IIT Madras has also announced the setting-up of a Research Park modeled on the lines of the Stanford Research Park and MIT Technology Way. This is coming up in a separate campus adjacent to TIDEL Park. Texas Instruments have already gone on record saying that one of the main reasons for they setting up a new R&D facility in Madras is because of the immense talent pool available in the city with specific mention of IIT Madras and its facilities.

Way to go IIT Madras.