Ranchi, April 12: Young in years, not in ambitions.

Merely in its third year, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ranchi, is planning to introduce postgraduate diploma in human resource management from the 2012-13 academic session. If everything goes as per plans, the Ranchi cradle will be the first and only IIM to offer this course.

Chairman of the B-school’s board of governors R.C. Bhargava said they were launching the two-year programme to meet requirements of the present times, as there was a huge demand across the country for skilled human resource personnel. “It is being realised worldwide that good human resource management is very important for corporate houses to achieve big goals. In fact, good HR policies can change the fortunes of a not-so-good company. But this will require highly skilled human resource managers and hence, the new course,” Bhargava told The Telegraph on the sidelines of the institute’s convocation on Wednesday.

In fact, various corporate houses — both public and private — are scouting for talented HR professionals and the new course in IIM-Ranchi is expected to be very popular, he added. According to IIM-Ranchi director M.J. Xavier, classes would kick off from July. No IIM, including the more famous ones like Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta chapters, offers a course in human resource management. However, some private B-schools like XLRI (Jamshedpur), Xavier Institute of Social Service (Ranchi), Indian School of Business and Finance (New Delhi), New Delhi Institute of Management (Delhi) and Management Institute for Leadership and Excellence (Pune) among others teach HR.