Key Points
Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are stepping up efforts to reach out to their alumni spread across the globe for donations at a time when government funding is becoming increasingly inadequate for the countrys elite engineering institutes amid huge escalation in costs...
IIT Delhi, which currently has a total endowment reserve of Rs 350 crore from its alumni, looks to add another Rs 250 crore in the next two years, its dean of alumni relations PVM Rao said..
However, one big donation may change these projections as it happened with IIT Bombay with (Nandan) Nilekanis donation, Rao said.. Infosys cofounder Nilekani had donated Rs 315 crore to IIT Bombay in June 2023, taking his total contribution to his alma mater from where he completed his bachelors degree in electrical engineering in 1973 to Rs 400 crore..
Alumni donations are important for the institute to be self-sustaining, as they allow us to support initiatives that might find it difficult to receive funding from government programmes, IIT Kanpur director S Ganesh said.. IITs use the contribution from alumni to set up infrastructure such as hostels, laboratories, innovation centre and sports facilities, give grants and scholarships to students, fund faculty development, endow chair professorships, and fund activities such as participation in international conferences, and dissemination of research results, among several other expenses for which the limited government funding do not suffice...
All fund requirements, meaning salaries and operational costs for running the institute, are still met mostly from government funding, said Mahesh Panchagnula, dean (alumni and corporate relations) at IIT Madras..
