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THE Vellore Institute of Technology's Centres of Excellence play an important role in the service of the nation. The Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (CSRD) has made a difference to the lives of people in several villages in Vellore district. It has adopted an entire village, Brahmapuram, to improve the quality of life of its people.
Besides, the CSRD has adopted several schools in the district, and the Primary Health Centre at Tiruvalam. Computers, furniture, laboratory equipment, educational aids and kits for school libraries have been donated to many schools in the district.
Realising that modern equipment alone would not help tone up the academic standards in schools, the CSRD staff has been conducting orientation programmes for headmasters and teachers.
"An important goal we have set is to make Vellore a model district in the field of education. Our aim is to enable all students in the district who pass Plus Two examinations to go to college," said G. Viswanathan, Chancellor, VIT.
"We would like to implement a pilot project in Vellore district through CSDR. It will involve gauging the financial support required by poor parents to send their children to universities and colleges," he added. To implement it, the CSRD is banking on help from non-governmental organisations, educational institutions and government departments.
Another prestigious arm of the VIT is the two-year old VIT-Technology Business Incubator (VIT-TBI). Funded by the Department of Science and Technology, its aim is to create and maintain commercially successful high-technology ventures and nurture them with support including resources that they need at the start-up stage. While the VIT-TBI offers free consultancy to entrepreneurs of these ventures, it collects a nominal fee for the services, space and technical support given. Its facilities include a library on technology, marketing, business and finance, and Internet facility.
The TBI's thrust areas are biotechnology-based industries; environment-friendly solutions and products for leather industries; products related to automotive and mechanical engineering sectors; and information technology products and solutions. These areas were chosen to help the Katpadi-Ranipet-Vellore industrial belt on the Bangalore-Chennai highway.
Other Centres include the Centre for Bioseparation Technology; the Automotive Research Centre; Energy Centre; the CAD/CAM Centre (Computer Aided Design/ Computer Aided Manufacturing); the Centre for Disaster Mitigation and Management; the Centre for Biotechnology; the Centre for Advanced Integrated Circuit Design; the Centre for Micro Electromechanical Systems; the Crystal Research Centre; and TIFAC-CORE.
The Centre for Disaster Mitigation and Management, VIT, has signed agreements with the National Institute of Disaster Management, the Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi and the Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee to pool their resources to combat disasters.
The VIT Business School boasts of two "smart classrooms" where pages from a book or a newspaper article can be beamed on an electronic board. Students can download them into the laptops connected to their desks. The Rapid Prototyping Centre has a machine which, using CAD, can manufacture prototype products - propellers, saree guards in motorcycles, a car component for air-conditioning switchgear and so on - made from a variety of plastic called ABS plastic.
S.K. Sekar, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Coordinator (Administration), School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, has laid a 300-foot-long road on the VIT campus that is as sturdy as a conventional cement concrete road. The first stretch of 100 feet reduced cement content by 20 per cent by using fly-ash; in the second stretch, he replaced 40 per cent of river sand with waste sand; and in the final 100 feet stretch, 50 per cent of river sand was replaced with stone dust. According to Sekar, the construction costs for the first two stretches for a kilometre each was cheaper by Rs.77,000 and Rs.24,000 when compared to the cost of a conventional cement concrete road.
T.S. Subramanian
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