The competition between two of the best B-schools in the country for higher salaries during placements will extend to the playing fields next week.

In a first of its kind initiative, the Indian Institutes of Management in Calcutta and Bangalore will compete on the Joka campus to prove their mettle in sports.

And no one is taking the event lightly. “Apart from the week-long intra-hostel competitions and the Student Exchange Programme, the annual sports meet between the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, is almost a war. We are eagerly looking forward to the new sports competition,” said Sarfaraz Khimani, the external relations secretary of IIM Calcutta.

The IIM Calcutta-Bangalore meet, to be held on August 11 and 12, has been christened Samhar, which loosely means attack. The competition will comprise of 15 games, including basketball, football, badminton, tennis, athletics, cricket and even chess and carrom. About 90 students from IIM Bangalore will come down to Calcutta to take part in the meet.

“The intention of the meet is to provide a common platform for the IIM students to interact. We hope that the event will serve as the foundation for future IIM meets,” said Amit Kamble, the sports secretary of IIM Calcutta.

There is a plan to involve all the IIMs in future editions of the competition. The pan-IIM event will be along the lines of the sports meet involving the Indian Institutes of Technology every winter.

The organisers had tried to make this year’s meet tripartite by including IIM Ahmedabad in the competition, but problems in matching dates put paid to the plan.

“We want to put forward the proposal to all the IIMs this year so that the event can involve all the institutes from next year. However, a lot of details need to be worked out,” said Kamble.

The boys and girls of IIM Calcutta and Bangalore are putting heart and soul into preparations for the impending battle. “Both sets of students have been practising hard for the past month and a half,” added Kamble.

Such an event is bound to foster a sense of camaraderie among students, feel psychologists. “When students spend a lot of time together, even by competing among themselves, there is bound to be a sense of fellow feeling and bonding,” said Atashi Gupta, a psychologist.