By IANS,
Chennai : The Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) is planning to tap Indian corporates for funds to complete some of its infrastructural projects following increased intake of students over the last three years.
“The student intake has gone up. This year the total intake is around 450 students. Earlier, the intake was around 260 students,” IIM-C director Shekhar Chaudhuri told IANS here.
“We are building around 530,000 sq ft of new facility. Half of the project is over. We have built 14 classrooms out of 19 planned. Two new hostels are under construction. The total project outlay is around Rs.195 crore,” he added.
He said the institute has decided to approach corporates for Rs.50 crore to complete the infrastructural projects.
Dean and strategic management professor Sougata Ray said: “We have spent from our internal accruals and our corpus. We would like to have some balance in our corpus built over the years and hence the decision to tap the corporates.”
Asked about the response of Indian corporates, Chaudhuri said: “We have not approached any corporate till now to gauge their response.”
Institute officials said corporate philanthropy for higher education in India is not popular though some Indian groups have made donations to foreign universities.
“Making donations to foreign business schools by Indian groups may also be a brand building strategy,” an official said.
Speaking of finances, Chaudhuri said the institute is self-sufficient in funds generation and has not received any funds from the government since 2003 for day-to-day activities.
“Our revenue is around Rs.100 crore. We are earning good revenue – around Rs.30 crore – from our long duration corporate training programme,” Chaudhuri said.
According to Ray, all the IIMs are planning to join hands to bring out a high quality management magazine on the lines of Harvard Business Review.
“It may take around a year to come out. The magazine’s name is yet to be finalised. It could be Indian Management Review,” Ray said.
Citing various business school ranking surveys, Ray said IIM-C has moved upwards one slot and is now number two among management institutes in the country.
Chaudhuri said the institute has decided focus on research work as a major strategic initiative.
“We have increased funding for research and also the stipend for post doctoral students. In the faculty promotion, weightage for research work will be given,” he said.
Meanwhile, like the Chennai Chapter of IIM-C Alumni Association that conducts marketing workshop for the students, the Bangalore chapter of IIM-C Alumni Association has decided to hold an entrepreneur workshop mainly focusing on social entrepreneurs.
The first workshop is slated next month and it will be an annual event. There are many IIM-C alumni who have turned social entrepreneurs, Ray said.