National president of XLRI Alumni Association Rana Sinha (left) at the news conference on Monday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Trust the premier B-school in Jamshedpur to extend a helping hand to the community.

Members of the Jamshedpur chapter of XLRI Alumni Association will offer financial support to MBA aspirants who are meritorious but poor. They will start offering scholarships from the next academic session to four deserving students to fund their education at XLRI.

“Initially, we want to start the scholarship scheme from next academic year for the cradle’s two flagship programmes — business management and human resource management. We have Rs 3 crore in our endowment fund and wish to turn it to Rs 500 crore so that we can take up various activities,” said national president of XLRI Alumni Association Rana Sinha at a news meet on the B- school campus on Monday.

He also expressed the urge to chalk out a number of other scholarship schemes, but added that it would be possible only after the endowment amount was increased.

“To start with, we will select two students for the two courses. The selection criteria have not been decided yet. But it will be done very carefully because the number of students will go up from next year and we want to offer the financial support to the most deserving ones. That’s the plan as of now. Later, we may extend the scholarship to more number of students,” said Sharad Sarin, chairperson of the alumni association.

The association already sponsors the graduation of as many as 10 tribal students at XITE, Gamharia.

Besides, the city chapter will also organise a reunion on November 30 and is expected to host around 300 members. The day will see a host of discussions, entertainment programmes and finally, a dinner get-together

The objective of the meet is to strengthen the bonding among the alumni. Besides making the meet an annual event, the city chapter also plans to take up other social activities in future.