Suchana Bhawan, Ranchi IIM’s campus for now. File picture

Ranchi, March 16: IIM, Ranchi has already received over 15,000 applications for its postgraduate programme in management, but has lowered cut-offs to encourage more participation from reserved categories.

Set to begin classes in June for the 2010-11 session, around 60-80 seats would be opened up this year at IIM, Ranchi, which is only offering PGPM for now.

“Authorities from IIM, Calcutta had visited the state last week. We have been informed by them that about 15,000 students had already applied for IIM, Ranchi. The trend is encouraging,” state HRD secretary Mridula Sinha told The Telegraph.

But sources at IIM, Calcutta, the mentoring institute for Ranchi, said the number of applications from CAT 2009 aspirants was expected swell further as the last date is March 31.

IIM, Calcutta senior faculty professor B.B. Chakroborty, who is also convenor for IIM, Ranchi, explained that in reality the number of applications would be lesser than what the numbers suggested, as many would also be applying to other IIMs in Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Bangalore, Lucknow, Indore, Kozhikode and Shillong.

“So, the effective number of students interested in IIM, Ranchi would be less. But despite that, initial figures are encouraging,” he maintained.

But the authorities have lowered the 95 percentile cut-off for reserved category students since their numbers don’t seem enough at the moment to fill the seats. For OBCs, the new cut off is now 80 per cent, for Scheduled Caste (SC) it is 70 per cent and for Scheduled Tribe (ST) and differently abled students it is 60 per cent.

Eligible candidates could now download the IIM, Ranchi application from the IIM, Calcutta website (www.iimcal.ac.in) and send it to Calcutta duly filled in by March 31 latest.

Chakroborty said the decision to lower cut-offs for reserved category students had been taken across all IIMs. But, the 95 percentile cut-off mentioned in the advertisement published on February 28 would continue to apply for general category candidates.

He clarified that lowering cut-offs for reserved category students did not imply direct admission, which would ultimately depend on the outcome of group discussions and personal interviews to be held next month.

Last year, around 2.40 lakh students had appeared in the on-line CAT examinations.