One of India's premier business schools, XLRI will soon have its campuses near Delhi and Mumbai.
The campus near Mumbai will open by early 2017 and the one near Delhi by 2018.
XLRI director Father E. Abraham said if their B-school had campuses near metro cities with proper air connectivity, it would help facilitate better placement opportunities from foreign companies.
"A campus in close proximity to metro cities with good air connectivity augurs well for our institution," Abraham said on the sidelines of an event to mark the start of the new academic session on Tuesday.
Currently, Jamshedpur does not have air connectivity. Commuting between Ranchi and Jamshedpur is a nightmare on the crater-riddled NH-33, which has further worsened due to the snail's pace of road widening work. Long train journeys are often the only option of outstation students.
Abraham said they had acquired 60 acres at Navi Mumbai, an urban township of India's financial capital.
"There was a charitable institute on the plot. But we will renovate it to make our new building. Therefore, much construction work will not be required. However, there are some issues over registry of land. We are hopeful of sorting out the issues and opening the campus by six-seven months," he added.
The second one will come up at Jhajjar district of Haryana, 73km from Delhi, on 30 acres at a cost of around Rs 165.20 crore to be funded by the Haryana government.
"The Haryana government gave its nod to XLRI in November 2015 to set up campus on 30 acres. Construction work will start soon after the building plans are cleared by the government," said Abraham.
Earlier in the day, the B-school extended a warm welcome to its new batch of 537 students who have enrolled in its three flagship programmes - business management (183), human resource management (182) and general management (119), besides the three-year postgraduate diploma in management (39) at the Tata Auditorium.
Addressing freshers, Father Abraham asked them to be ethical and responsible inside and outside the campus.
