The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : ‘IIT research culture should spread to other institutions'

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Thursday, Aug 19, 2010
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‘IIT research culture should spread to other institutions'

Staff Reporter

Government providing incentives aimed at promoting R&D in industry

Photo: Special Arrangement

Sharing views:Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, Coimbatore,

COIMBATORE: Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been successful in establishing a close collaboration with industry, research and development organisations and laboratories. They are well positioned to create sustainable relationships with them. The IIT culture of undertaking research and development needs to be spread to other institutions, S.K. Misra, former Central Project Advisor, Ministry of Human Resources Development, said here recently.

Speaking at an international conference on “Innovative Research in Engineering and Technology” at Park College of Engineering and Tekhnology, he said that for the research culture to spread, the institutions might initially take help from their mentor IIT or National Institute of Technology. Later, they could gradually become self-dependent. “Recognising that a strong technical education system is a necessary pre-condition to underpinning India's efforts to enhance further the productivity and efficiency of economy, the Government of India implemented the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP). The impact of this indicated that a total of 2,917 R&D projects were executed by the project institutions,” Mr. Misra said.

As a policy thrust, the Government was providing a number of fiscal incentives and other support measures aimed at promoting R&D in the industry.

“Due to shortage of qualified staff, there is a heavy load on the existing ones. This leads to the isolation of these teachers from the national and international research community. Our technical education system must dynamically respond to such deficiencies,” he said.

K. Karunakaran, Vice-Chancellor of Anna University of Technology, Coimbatore, said the contribution of engineers was significant not only in the area of technical development and infrastructure, but also in the eco-system, environmental protection, health, and sanitation.

“Budding engineers should develop a sense of awareness with analytical and creative skills aiming at new innovations for the welfare of the society,” the Vice-Chancellor said.

P.V. Ravi, chief patron, G. Mohan Kumar, organising chairman, and M. Prince Manickam, organising secretary, of the conference, spoke. Members of the management offered felicitations.

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