Lanka likely to host IIT-M’s 2nd offshore campus
According to sources, the Sri Lankan government is in touch with IIT-Madras for the ambitious project.
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NEW DELHI: The second offshore campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-Madras) is likely to be set up in Sri Lanka, according to sources. If the proposal put forth by Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe goes through, this will be the third IIT campus abroad.
According to sources, the Sri Lankan government is in touch with IIT-Madras for the ambitious project. “A high-level delegation had recently visited the Chennai campus to discuss the future roadmap. The talks are on and the campus is likely to come up in Kandy,” a source said.
“The delegation also visited the Research Park at the campus and interacted with officials about possible areas of engagement,” the source added. The Indian government had announced that opportunities for admission to the IITs in India will be provided to meritorious Sri Lankan students from the 2017-18 academic year.
“Talks with Sri Lankan authorities are in preliminary stages for IIT Madras to set up a campus in that country. A delegation from Sri Lanka visited our campus and soon a delegation from IIT-Madras will visit Sri Lanka for a feasibility study,” a spokesperson of IIT-Madras said. If the plan for the Sri Lanka campus comes through, it will be IIT-Madras’s second international campus after the campus in Tanzania’s Zanzibar, which began functioning in November last year from a temporary campus and is offering two full-time academic programmes — a four-year Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and a two-year Master of Technology in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
IIT-Delhi followed the league and signed a formal agreement with the UAE government to set up a campus in Abu Dhabi.
The UK is also keen on welcoming an IIT, and some UK universities are already in talks with IITs to explore the possibility. Several IITs have received requests from the Middle East and South Asian countries to set up their campuses.
The Centre had created a 17-member committee to facilitate the process of opening IIT campuses in foreign locations where students from different nations can study technical education.
The committee headed by IIT Council standing committee chairperson Dr K Radhakrishnan had submitted its recommendations in 2022.
