GOING PLACES

Jamshedpur, Oct. 20: From Singapore to Cyberabad, XLRI is spreading wings.

If all goes well, the premier management school could shortly have a new campus at Hyderabad to add to the ones it has in Jamshedpur and Singapore.

Officials of the B-school informed that negotiations with the Andhra Pradesh government were nearing completion. “We are hopeful that XLRI would soon have a new location in Hyderabad,” said director Father N. Casmir Raj.

For its new campus in Hyderabad, the institute requires about 60 acres of land.

The board of governors of XLRI School of Business and Human Resources had already given the go-ahead for acquiring a campus at Hyderabad. Negotiations with the Andhra Pradesh ministry of land and revenue are in the final stages and the necessary formalities are expected to be completed by the end of this year, XLRI officials said.

Earlier this year, the B-school opened its first campus abroad in Singapore. At present it offers a three-year part-time programme in Masters in Business Administration. About 40 students have enrolled.

Father Raj said once the Hyderabad campus is opened, the institute would initiate steps to double the batch-size of its most sought-after flagship course — personnel management and industrial relations (PM&IR).

Currently, the PM&IR course has an intake capacity of 65 students.

The B-school had already doubled the batch-size of the business management course a couple of years ago. Now, the business management batch has 120 students.

Dean of academics P. Venugopal said increasing the batch-size of the PM&IR course is being contemplated also because of the market demand.

“The new campus at Hyderabad would enable us to increase the batch-size for PM&IR course for which modalities would be worked out later,” he said.

There is a huge demand for the PM&IR course in the country and abroad. Over the last five decades, since the B-school was founded, more than 2,300 students have qualified for the post-graduate diploma in PM&IR and are occupying senior level positions.

Officials of the B-school said the campus at Hyderabad would be spacious and provide all facilities that exist at Jamshedpur.