The present IIM Trichy campus

IIM Tiruchirapalli (IIMT) will be opening a new campus in Chennai. According to details available, a new building has been taken over in the Guindy, which is considered prime real estate in Chennai and is the entry point to the city from the southern parts of Tamil Nadu and south-western areas of Chennai. The new programme will have an intake of 60 students and the course will start in August. It will be primarily aimed at working executives and classes will be held on weekends and evenings (6-9.00pm) so candidates do not have to quit their jobs.

The space acquired for the new campus is all of 13,000 square feet and the academic year will begin with a few classrooms, canteen and a library. The Chennai campus will offer three-year executive programmes which will be titled Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) and be based on IIM Trichy’s Post Graduate Programme (PGP).

This acquisition comes close on the heels of IIM Kozhikode starting a new campus in Cochin, also with working executives in mind.

The fees fixed for the new programme is Rs 9-10 lakhs and a facility of paying up in installments has also been worked out. The programme will consist of 18 core courses, 14 elective courses and 1 industry project spread over 3 years. Apparently, the idea to run a second campus came out of the fact that Trichy, though well-connected by air, bus and road is still considered ‘unapproachable’ and Chennai is more suitable for working executives. The Chennai campus is also expected to hold a few activities like placements and admissions of both the campuses in the months to come because of its easy accessibility.

While some modalities have yet to be worked out, the Chennai campus will look at admitting executives with minimum three years of work-ex and a good academic background. IIM Trichy is the eleventh IIM to be set up in the country and started its operation a year ago. IIM Trichy also has 15 permanent faculty and also one permanent international faculty – the latter is a rarity even in many of the older IIMs.

Incidentally, in Trichy itself, the institute has decided to build a new campus at a cost of Rs 200 crore. IIMT is temporarily functioning out of the National Institute of Technology-Tiruchy (NITT) campus. The new Trichy campus will be ready by 2014.