Nagpur most suitable for setting up IIM in Maharashtra

Devendra Fadnavis

Nagpur: With Vidarbha's Devendra Fadnavis becoming the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, citizens and various organisations including NGOs in the city are pinning hopes on the new government for all round development of Nagpur, dreaming to get prestigious institutions here.

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis

The Indian Institute of Management (IIM)- Nagpur is one among the many, Vidarbhaites are hoping to get on the educational map here. Having learnt of the allocation of an IIM for Maharashtra by Ministry Of Human Resource Development, the the Vidarbha Economic Development Council (VED) has urged the government to open it in Nagpur to make it an iconic education hub.

The rationale behind it being that more students would get benefit from quality education at an affordable cost, backward and scheduled classed would get included in the growth mechanism, and there would be balanced overall economic and social development.

Mumbai already has top-ranked JBIMS and the autonomous Narsee Monjee, hence Nagpur, in Vidarbha, is where an IIM should ideally come. Pune too has two institutes in form of University Department and Symboisis, so why not Vidarbha, NGO VED said.

Of the 13 IIMs in the country, some have been set up in small places like Kozhikode (Kerala), Rohtak (Haryana), Tiruchirapalli (TN), Udaipur (Rajasthan) and Kashipur (Uttarakhand). Nagpur which has several locational advantages over these places, is also the second capital of Maharashtra and hence it too deserves a top notch institute, VED felt.

The only national level institute in Vidarbha is the Institute of Management Technology--Nagpur (IMT), which is 35 kmsaway on Nagpur-Katol road offering PGDM course with sanctioned intake of 360 each year with specialisation in marketing, human resources and information technology.

The advantage Nagpur has is -- first its air, rail and road connectivity; and secondly the preference of students from UP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Orissa to Nagpur over Pune, because of lesser distance. Also, between Indore (IIM) and Hyderabad (International School of Business) and IIM (Raipur) there is no other management institute (except IMT, a private B-school).

This vacuum can be filled in by setting up of IIM-Nagpur. The other advantages are: availability of land which is abundant in Nagpur, strong alumni of IIM-A based in Nagpur, supported by specialists in field of IT, production, and IT companies doing well in Nagpur, it said.

Another biggest advantage of Nagpur is presence of major public sector companies such as Western Coalfields Limited
(WCL), Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL), Manganese Ore India Limited, CICR besides training institutes
of international/national repute such as NADT (National Academy of Direct Taxes), NADP (National Academy of Defence
Production) on the management development program front.

IIM-Nagpur can do extremely well because entry to public sector is relatively easy, the VED strongly justified.