The four students at the Development Management Institute on Tuesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

The state government’s ambitious Development Management Institute, built on the lines of Gujarat’s Institute of Rural Management Anand (Irma), could attract only four students for the 60 seats it offered for its first batch.

With no campus of its own as of now, the classes are being conducted from Biscomaun Bhavan from 10am to 5pm. DMI offers a two-year full-time course in post-graduate programme in development management. The fee for the two-year course is Rs 6 lakh.

Professor K.V. Raju, a former faculty member of Irma who is serving as the director of the DMI, however, expressed happiness over commencement of classes.

Irma is considered to be a pioneer in introducing the study of rural management in India.

Set up in 1979 with a view to managing organisations working in the rural sector professionally and creating a pool of knowledge in the field of rural management, the institution is considered to be the best in the country when it comes to imparting education in rural management and generating the best talents in the field through a methodical mix of study and field exposure.

“The environment over here is very encouraging and supportive. I resigned from Irma just to get associated with the DMI. My only concern is that we could not start the institution aggressively. Delay has surely cost us dearly otherwise we could have got more students in the first batch,” Raju told The Telegraph.

The admission of the four students has been done on the basis of 2013 Common Admission Test (CAT) scores and screening based on group discussions, personal interview and aptitude test. The classes in DMI started on July 14.

On why just four students took admission in the DMI, Raju said: “Registering the institution and getting requisite approval from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) was delayed. This hit our advertisement. From the next batch (the process for which would start in September-October) everything would be well planned. I must thank the rural development department and the former chief minister (Nitish Kumar) for opening such an institution here.”

All four students — Ambar Kumar (Jehanabad), Sakshi Saurabh (Patna), Khusboo Kumari (East Champaran) and Pushkar Kumar (Aurangbad) — hail from Bihar.

Expressing excitement on being associated with the DMI, Khusboo Kumari said: “I want to enter the field of development management. So, I am happy to be a part of the institution. The faculty members are really good.”

On the less number of students, rural development minister Nitish Mishra said: “It’s just the first batch so numbers are not a concern for us. I had promised to start the academic session in 2014 and the government has done it. Once the infrastructure improves and awareness is created, the DMI would draw a large number of students.”