Improving NIT Calicut’s ranking at national level would be my top priority, says Director

Prof Prasad Krishna took charge as the Director of National Institute of Technology (NIT) Calicut on Monday. The five-year tenure of former director Sivaji Chakravorti ended in August last year. 

Prof  Krishna was  earlier  heading  the  Department of Mechanical Engineering at  NIT Surathkal.  The five-year tenure of former director Sivaji Chakravorti ended in  August last year. The post of the director had been lying vacant  since then and Deputy Director PS Sathidevi was holding the charge  of the director’s post. 

Prasad  Krishna received his BE degree from Regional Engineering College,  Karnataka (now NITK  Surathkal)  in 1983, MTech degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)  Madras in 1990 and PhD from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the  United States, in 2001. He has  more than 37 years of professional experience in several fields,  including automobile manufacturing, precision machine tool design  and development, metal casting, space research and teaching. 

 As  per a report published in The Hindu, he said  his top priority would be to improve on the parameters especially  research and perception among academic peer for the National  Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Education. 

For that, he said interface between the impressive alumni at foreign universities and research centres and the institute would be further networked in the coming months. “Our institute is the best in Kerala but we need to improve our visibility at the national level,” said Prof Krishna.  

Besides, he said the focus would be given on improving faculty-student ratio as well as taking steps to upgrade research activities at each department. “The parameter —research and professional practice — that includes publications, citations and patents are important for ranking of an institute,” he said. 

As per the NIRF 2021, the NIT Calicut retained the top position among the engineering colleges in the state, but it slipped two slots to 25th rank. 

Prof Krishna had served as scientist at the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (DRDO), Bengalurua and Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (ISRO), Thiruvananthapuram, design engineer at HMT Ltd Kochi before joining as Professor at NITC in 1991. For more than a year, he was also a research assistant at the National University of Singapore, the report added. 

Read more: 

• Prasad Krishna appointed NIT Calicut director