Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 14 inaugurated the discovery campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras at Thaiyur, near Chennai. IIT Madras said the new campus will accommodate the growing research infrastructure requirements of students and faculty.
The virtual inauguration was held in the presence of the Governor of Tamil Nadu, Banwarilal Purohit, and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, and a host of other dignitaries.
This satellite campus of IIT Madras will standalone research centres with large dedicated facilities and will have its own support infrastructure such as hostels for the research scholars and fellows, common instrumentation laboratories, and conference facilities, among other amenities.
In 2019, the state government allotted IIT Madras 163 acres of land at Thaiyur, which is located about 36 kilometre from the main campus at Guindy.
Research activities at IIT Madras got a boost after it was declared an institution of eminence in 2019.
To create research facilities over the next decade, the satellite campus at Thaiyur has been planned primarily as a research campus.
Two research centres have already been planned for the Discovery Campus and would be operational by the end of 2021.
These include the National Technology Centre for Ports, Waterways and Coasts, which is funded by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Government of India.
The second research centre to come up in the Discovery Campus is the solid propellant combustion modeling facility of the Centre of Propulsion Technology, which is funded by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
