New Delhi, Nov 20 (IANS): The Thiagarajar group of institutions and Walchand Institute of Technology are among the winners of the AICTE-CII survey of top industry-linked technical institutes 2014, industry chamber CII said Thursday.

Twelve awards were announced at the Knowledgexpo, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion in Greater Noida, CII said in a statement here.

The best performing institutes were selected after a three-month long online survey and a subsequent three-month jury process, it added.

The third edition of the survey which saw the number of participating institutes surge more than 125 percent has been given the name AICTE-CII IndPact from this year, CII said

The 12 awards have been sponsored by eight companies - Bharat Forge, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Elico, Dynamatic Technologies, Godrej, Infosys, Ingersoll Rand and Tata Chemicals.

Started in 2012 by CII and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the IndPact Survey is a source of information on existing industry-academia collaborations.