New Delhi, Dec. 18: The Indian Institutes of Technology may finally be shedding the tag of public-funded launchpads for the best and the brightest to leap to greener pastures abroad, the first comprehensive study on the subject suggests.

The fraction of graduates from the IITs settling for careers abroad has halved since India began economic liberalisation, according to the survey conducted by the IIT alumni association.

The IIT Impact Study will be made public at the inauguration of the 2008 Pan IIT Global Alumni Meet in Chennai tomorrow. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will release the survey and “welcome” all delegates to the inauguration via video link from Delhi.

The IITs have long faced criticism as government-subsidised institutes which churn out individuals unwilling to work in India.

The criticism was based on the fact that a large number of IITians would settle for careers in the developed world — either immediately after graduating, or later — that offer better pay than Indian companies.

But the opportunities that sprang up in India over the past few years — both in multinationals and in domestic firms — have helped stall the brain drain, according to the study.

One in every two IIT alumni — of those polled — who graduated before 1991 chose careers abroad, the study shows. However, less than 25 per cent of the alumni who graduated post-2001 are working abroad, sources familiar with the study said.

“There is a very sharp decline in the number of IITians seeking jobs abroad since 2001, but the decline started in 1991, which tells us that it was economic liberalisation that put the stopper on the brain drain,” an organiser of the Pan IIT conference said.

In all, over 4,500 alumni from the IITs have been polled.

The survey suggests that IITians who stay back to work in India make a difference.

“An important indicator of the role being played by IIT alumni in Indian corporations is the fact that 54 per cent of the top 500 Indian companies currently have at least one IIT alumnus on their board of directors, and these companies have a cumulative revenue that is 10 times greater than that of the other companies on the list,” the study says.

Half of the IIT alumni working in science and research are based in India, and one in every 10 IITians is working either with an NGO, the government or is in politics, according to the study.

Two-thirds of all companies founded by IITians are based in India.