Sambalpur, April 16: The state's only Indian Institute of Management situated here, which will shortly produce its first bunch of management graduates, is yet to get many basic facilities, such as permanent faculty members and a syllabus of its own.
A number of infrastructure issues - right from faculty to connectivity - are crippling the institute so much so that what was supposed to be an addition to the elite club of leading business schools of the country has just turned out as good as any average management institute of the state.
The third term exam of the first batch of the Indian Institute of Management, Sambalpur (IIM-S), is already complete. But so far, the studies have been conducted with the help of temporary faculty members. The IIM-S, which started operations from its temporary campus at the Silicon Institute of Technology (SIT) at Sason on the outskirt of the city on September 23 last year, continues to remain dependent on guest faculties from other institutions.
Faculty members from the IIM-Indore, which is the mentor institute of IIM-S, and from other business schools are taking classes at the IIM-S even after six months of its inception. The institute is yet to get a director, while it still follows the curriculum of the IIM-Indore.
Guest faculty members mostly come here to stay on weekly basis and take classes. They generally come to Raipur or Bhubaneswar by air and then take a car to Sambalpur which takes at least six to seven hours. Even Air Odisha flights that were connecting Bhubaneswar to Sambalpur are not operating now.
A senior official of the state technical education department said that the recruitment of the permanent faculty would shortly be over and that would solve many of the problems faced by the students of the institute.
"The permanent faculty members of the management institution will be appointed after the appointment of a director. The Union ministry of human resource development had recently published an advertisement inviting application for the post of director of all the six new IIMs, including the IIM-S. The recruitment process is being conducted by the IIM-Indore and should be completed soon," said state technical education secretary L.N. Gupta.
He also said that the state government was extending full support to develop infrastructure for the institution.
An official of the IIM-S, Amrut Phalguni Mohanty, said that 200 acres had been identified for the permanent campus of the institute that would come up at Basantpur on the city outskirt. Mohanty said that the land had already been handed over. However, he had no idea when construction would begin on the site.
The students are also miffed with the quality of education being provided at the IIM-S. The temporary campus of the institute has turned into a Wi-Fi campus now and all the classrooms are air-conditioned. But, the library is yet to be air-conditioned, while the institute does not have a video-conferencing unit.
"We had been given a list of faculties on every subject along with the course outline. We had been asked about their choices on faculties. The faculties were invited according to our choice," said a student of IIM-S, Rajiv Ranjan.
The guest lecturers from IIM-Indore and other B-schools are also often reluctant to come to Sason to take classes here since the region is not properly connected to bigger cities. "Owing to late arrival of guest faculty members, the classes started late here. We had to manage to make-up for the late classes with extra efforts from both students and faculty," said class representative of the first batch of IIM-S, Md Kashif.
The students of the institute will undergo two months summer internship before the classes for the 4th term begins in June. All the 48 students of the IIM-S, which has an intake capacity of 60 students, have been selected for internship at various corporate houses.
