Ahmedabad, March 24: New peaks are being conquered at a B-school, as graduates step off the straight and narrow corporate path.

A trio from the batch of 2005 at IIM Ahmedabad has given placements ? and salaries as high as $152,000 (Rs 65 lakh, approximately) ? the miss, opting to turn entrepreneur instead.

Sharat Chandra and Praveen Yedla, both engineers from IIT Mumbai, are waiting for the convocation on April 2 before they head to Hyderabad to take the plunge.

?I want to be an employer, not an employee,? says 25-year-old Sharat, when asked about skipping placements ? the red-letter event in the business school calendar.

This year, IIMA attracted 477 job offers for 247 students ? including some lateral offers from global companies, which used to recruit only at the entry level earlier. The highest domestic pay offered was Rs 14.5 lakh and the best overseas offer was $152,000, from HSBC London.

But Sharat and 24-year-old aeronautical engineer Praveen have shunned the safety of a high-flying corporate career to bungee-jump into the consultancy business.

The duo is planning to float their own firm that will offer professional help to the small-scale sector. ?We want to build a team to serve small-scale industries which have a less than Rs 10-crore annual turnover.?

Chhatrapal Ninave, also 24, does not even have the safety of numbers. While Sharat and Praveen have each other for company, the Nagpur boy is going completely alone. He has already returned home ?to explore new horizons?.

Sharat, a chemical engineer, has consultancy experience, having done a two-year stint with Arthur Anderson between IIT and IIM. While they wait for the convocation, he is already on the job, writing to contacts back home.

It was at Arthur Anderson that he decided he wanted to strike out on his own. But then, he used to think he first needed to get work exposure abroad. A four-month student exchange visit to Germany, during which Sharat toured 10 European countries, changed his mind. He decided he did not want to work abroad.

In choosing swades over videsh, Sharat has plenty of company. Twenty-one companies offered overseas placements at IIMA, director Bakul Dholakia said. But as many as 10 graduates took up domestic offers instead, at lower salaries.

Kanishka Raja, a Lucknow lad who chose Mumbai over Singapore, said India offers an exciting opportunity. ?Money was never a consideration for me,? he declared. Kanishka turned down a $90,000-offer to work in Singapore in favour of a Rs 12-lakh job in Mumbai.

Money will not be a constraint for them either, feel Praveen and Sharat. ?Our company will not be capital-intensive. Of course, we will have to build a team, and for that we need the blessing of our professors.??

It is a professor ? Sunil Handa ? who the boys give credit to for their decision. Handa conducted a course, Laboratory Entrepreneurship Motivation, which they say inspired them to start on their own. The professor, Sharat adds, ?is damn happy about my decision?.

Handa and a few other professors will be on the board of the firm that the batchmates plan to register as soon as they have done a market survey in Hyderabad.

To begin with, Sharat feels his hometown is the best place to start. ?But when we develop a replicable business model, we will see to it that it is replicated in other cities,? says Sharat, who is ready to slog it out for at least the initial years.

For inspiration, he can look to IIT batchmate from the class of 2001 Vardan Kabra ? his ?ideal and inspiration? ?who spurned a tempting pay package to start his dream school in Surat after graduating from IIMA last year.

Or Malli Mastan Babu, who has gone even further. The IIT Kharagpur-IIM Calcutta boy skipped placements last year because he wanted to set up his own company. That will be in 2006. Right now, he is busy climbing mountains. Malli plans to conquer the seven highest peaks in seven continents before coming back to promote adventure sports as a training module in the corporate sector.

For support, Sharat is confident they can fall back upon batchmates in IIM and IIT. Seniors are sending congratulatory letters and peers ? who had laughed at the idea initially ? are now promising all help. Friends, not just fortune, favour the brave.