Comment by pchangr

Oh, I could find just the founding statement of the project stating it was funded by the “Principal Scientific Advisor” of the government of India https://acr.iitm.ac.in/iitm_in_news/iit-madras-launches-sudh... did you find something different?

Edit: it seems you were right. Apparently they have received big donations from ex-alumni including the co-founder of infosys and the founder of Fairfax Financial Holdings. Pretty cool!