Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi on Tuesday announced it has developed a platform where anyone from across the country can book an instrument of its Central Research Facility (CRF) for research work.
Through this system, researchers from across the country can use IIT Delhi's Central Research Facilities in the main campus at New Delhi as well as the one in the Sonipat campus.
“Rs 500 crore have been either spent or committed by IIT Delhi to establish various high-end facilities at the CRF. The main sources of funding include the IoE grant, special MoE grant, IIT Delhi grant through Industrial Research and Development, DST's Sophisticated Analytical and Technical Help Institutes (SATHI) project, HEFA loan etc,” IIT Delhi Director V Ramgopal rao said on Tuesday, while announcing the platform.
“Today, we have over 50 different facilities, owned and/or adopted by the CRF, which are already available to the users. This number is likely to get doubled in the next two years....” Prof Rao added.
IIT Delhi's Central Research Facility was established in 2011 in an effort to boost the research ecosystem at the institute.
“Since 2017, the CRF facilities have been significantly augmented with several state-of-the-art high-end experimental facilities. These have so far been catering to the needs of researchers from various departments and disciplines across the Institute,” the institute said.
In 2017 a new CRF building was constructed at IIT Delhi's extension campus in Sonipat. Another new building with a much larger area is also under construction in Sonipat, which will be completed by March 2022, the institute said.
“Some of the most modern equipment like Physical Property Measurement System, X-Ray Photoemission Spectrometer, High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope, Molecular Beam Epitaxy, Universal Testing Machine, Electron Paramagnetic Resonance etc. are now housed in Sonipat and many more have been planned for the upcoming second building,” said Prof Pankaj Srivastava, Head, Central Research Facility, IIT Delhi.