NEW DELHI: India’s scientific effort to contain and eliminate the threat of the novel corona virus is being led by 18 IITs with experts engaged in 208 dedicated R&D projects under seven different categories. As some of their work starts yielding results, IIT-Guwahati has shown the way cornering the biggest pool of projects, followed by IIT-Madras and IIT-Hyderabad. Nearly 50% of the key research in India’s premier technical schools are happening in six of the old IITs.Majority of the researches are happening in the field of personal protective care equipment (45 projects), followed by sanitisation (33) and treatment, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological (30). The other areas include testing kits, medical equipment/ robots, surveillance and data analytics, AI to model epidemic patterns and disease dynamics. IIT-Madras and IIT-Guwahati are researching in all seven categories.With projected funding of over 120 crore in the next 18 months for these research projects, even the comparatively new IITs are pitching in. The year-old IIT-Mandi has three research projects, IIT-Palakkad is researching in 10 key areas and IIT-Goa in one. Many of the researches are at advance stage. According to T G Sitharam, director, IIT-Guwahati, “Various projects are already in production stages, like the commercialised ones which include full PPE suits, UV-LED disinfectant, drone technology for disinfection of large areas which is not in use in a few states. Then there is full face protective shield which is being manufactured and being delivered on daily.” The IIT is also ready with prototypes of antiviral spray for PPE, hydrophobic coatings for masks, gloves, robots for waste collection and delivering medicine to patients in isolation wards.A diagnosis and vaccine development research has also been signed with a company for commercialisation. Sitharam added that “If all the submitted projects are to be implemented successfully it would require an investment of up to 3 to 4 crore initially.”Researches at IIT-Madras are divided into three groups – the startups reorienting and looking at COVID-19 related problems, faculty and research scholars who stayed back during the lock down and have submitted proposals based on calls from national and international funding agencies and faculty realigning their undergoing projects towards finding solution to the problems related to the pandemic.The institute is now looking at a month to three for some of its products to go on low cost mass scale production. According to professor A K Mishra, dean, academic research, IIT-Madras, “Majority of the advance stage researches are by the startups. Once the mobility starts the other research will pick pace. But there are quite a few innovative products which could be in mass production soon such as the ‘negative pressure medical cabins’ under the rapid shelter system where one can quickly deploy a reusable medical cabin specially for contagious diseases. Another interesting product at advance stage is a surveillance wide angle camera which can be installed at strategic public space which can detect and alert people with high temperature, then zoom in to detect for other symptoms.”Among those which have yielded results is the ICMR approved detection assay developed by IIT-Delhi using label-free technology, which would make a Covid-19 test cost just about a few hundred rupees. The team began working on the detection assay kit in 2020 January-end.On the research underway at the IITs, V Ramgopal Rao , director, IIT-Delhi said: “There’s a lot of research happening in IITs. Almost every week we are releasing something to the society. If institutions don’t do it now it is not justifiable. At IIT-Delhi when lockdown was announced we told our faculty and students that we are open for research and IIT will fund the research and their stay on the campus.”IITs like Madras and Delhi are also receiving CSR funding for these researches. According to Rao, IIT-Delhi is in talks with at least five industries.