CHENNAI: A recent survey among IIT-Madras alumni has revealed that the preference for working in India has gone up in recent batches. In the survey conducted by Gopala Ganesh, alumnus of 1973 graduating class, more than 2,000 alumni participated making it one of the largest surveys undertaken by any IIT.The survey pins the number of jobs created by IIT-M alumni at a whopping 3.6 million based on the median. According to it 70% of the total revenue responsibility and 90% of jobs creation by the alumni leaders is in India. About 40% of the alumni claim to have made a very high or high contribution to India.The survey further goes on to show a decline in the number of graduates living abroad over the years. “The percentage of IITM grads living abroad peaked to 40% in the mid-70's to mid-'90s batches, and dropped to 34% post-2000. The drop is even more severe post-2010, down to the 20% range,” it says.Commenting on the findings, Prof. R. Nagarajan, IIT-M alumnus and Dean of International & Alumni Relations at IIT-Madras, noted. “Even donations to the alma mater are now substantially originating from alumni resident in India, whereas till a few years ago, alumni in North America were clearly the largest contributors. This also shows up in the enhanced physical connectivity between the campus and the alumni. We see many alumni spending significant time mentoring students in everything from entrepreneurship to life skills”.Post-2005, there has been an uptick in those opting for manufacturing professions, versus IT & software, as per the survey. While around 30% are currently employed in core engineering, a third of those who left it have moved on to become entrepreneurs. Uniformly across batches, greater than 70% of the companies are tech in nature."The survey results illustrate that IIT graduates contribute significantly to India’s growth, in diverse roles, including industry, education, entrepreneurship, social sector, and the like. IIT Madras, in particular, has served the country well, through its graduates as well as its faculty, and will excel further in the coming years," said Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras and the first IITM alumnus to serve in that capacity.IIT-Madras has seen the number of its graduates going up from 100 students in 1964 to over 2000 in 2015. While the economic background of students has not changed significantly over the decades, a significantly larger fraction of students now come from semi-urban and rural areas.Gopala Ganesh, the author of the study, notes that out of the 2,135 responses to the survey, a sample of 1,228 complete responses was analysed to draw the conclusions. "The 3% sample size represents the 42,134 IITM alumni who graduated from 1964 through 2014 quite well. It also compares favourably with the Pan-IIT 2008 report that was based on a response rate of about 2% across IITs," he said.