 "IIT Madras to start research campus in Thaiyur")
The Tamil Nadu state government has allotted a constructible area of 160 acres for the Thaiyur institute and the compound wall has been constructed. The development would happen as and when particular research projects gets funding, over a period of time. The facility, a first of its kind in the country, would be able to house 10-15 research centres at a time, said R Nagarajan, professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and dean-International & Alumni Relations, IIT-Madras.
"The research campus would be for long-term research projects, such as a water research centre, which would be run in a mixed model of industry and government funding," he said. The first two major rounds of fundings are getting ready to take off in a couple of months, while the entire project would be completed and in full swing in next 10 years.
The project would be completed at a cost of around Rs 600-800 crore.
With the new norms in CSR activities getting implemented in the recent past, the institute has received around Rs 10-12 crore as funding for abour eight socially-oriented projects last year. The latest such funding was by Nokia, for a research project on creating technology solutions to enhance broadband connectivity in rural India.
Phase II of the IIT-M Research Park in Chennai is also expected to go fully on stream soon, with a large portion of it already occupied by Saint-Gobain Research India, they said.
The institute is also looking at creating an endowment fund of Rs 500 crore by 2020 and has created a full time office to achieve the goal.