The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITy) approving a proposal of Andhra University to undertake research in Electronic Design and Manufacturing under its Visvesvaraya PhD scheme is a step in the direction of creating the ecosystem for high tech manufacturing in Andhra Pradesh.
The proposal becomes important in view of the Government planning to promote electronics and medical equipment manufacturing in the district.
Andhra University is the only university approved under the scheme and it has been given approval for 10 full-time and 10 part-time research scholars, Vice Principal, Andhra University College of Engineering (autonomous) P. S. Avadhani, who pushed the proposal through the officials at the Centre, told The Hindu .
“The DEITy, through its Section 25 Company Media Labs Asia, would be spending Rs. 4.43 crore over five years. The funding includes fellowship, fund for infrastructure and expenses for the researcher to attend international programmes,” the professor said. Each year the college would have to send its proposal to DEITy, through the university, indicating the availability of research vacancies under qualified guides in the subject.
This is may be the first significant investment towards establishing of an ecosystem in Electronics Design and Manufacturing in the region as it enables the institutions develop facilities in research in Electronics and IT and thereby produce PhDs, said Gopi Bulusu, general chair, Super Computing Consortium of India. The SCCI had organised an interactive session on the scheme in July last.
The scheme aims at promoting greater industry-academia collaboration and through that research and development in Electronics and IT subjects. Unlike the research fellowships given by the CSIR and the UGC, under this scheme there is no direct funding to the scholar. It is only through the institution. The institution gets substantial funding for development of research facilities to help it become a centre of excellence, Prof. Avadhani said. The college already has a number of centres of excellence like one in nanotechnology, another in cyber security.
The Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme also funds the research projects of young faculty and the college is likely to get funding for more than two. The college has to admit research scholars under the project following the norms of the Central government.
Once the college gets its full complement of faculty, it would be able to get approvals for more PhDs under the scheme, he said.
