It is affiliated to the University of Madras[5] and provides arts, science and commerce courses at the Bachelors, Master's and Doctoral levels.

Youth are trained in conducting night schools, laying the roads, educating slum dwellers, service to the handicapped, tree plantation, and health programmes.

The departments of botany, chemistry, physics, mathematics, economics, philosophy and Sanskrit offer research programmes.

As a mark of appreciation and encouragement, Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, under the secretaryship of Swami Satyapriyananda, created a separate institute – Vivekananda Institute of Tropical Mycology (VINSTROM) — in 2005 to continue the research in mycology under the directorship of Dr. T. S. Suryanarayanan.

VINSTROM focuses its efforts on understanding the biodiversity and technological potential of microfungi in forests and other environments.

Based on the success of this new technology, industries such as Wheels India are seeking solutions for effective effluent treatment through phycoremediation.

Sivasubramanian has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chennai-based Indo-Japan joint venture company M/s Nichi-In Biosciences for a research project with emphasis on microbial biotechnology and environment safety to develop technology for environment-friendly plastic materials, to find ways to safely dispose the plastic materials using microbes and develop and validate polymers useful for water conservation in agriculture and horticulture.

Prof. Mori Yuichi of Waseda University, Japan, and Dr. Yoshioka Hiroshi of Mebiol Inc., are participating in this collaboration.

The department conducts monthly seminars and colloquiums, and hosts a yearly international conference in a particular area of mathematics.

It has funding and support from the UGC, National Board for Higher Mathematics, Department of Atomic Energy, Govt.