Groups of students from the first year PGP in Agri-Business Management (ABM) from IIM-A will visit villages in Bihar, Maharashtra and Gujarat to study persistent rural problems and offer recommendations to the local authorities.
Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Mehsana and Kutch in Gujarat will be covered under this study, according to IIM-A officials.
The exercise is part of the ‘rural immersion’ program in the ABM course where students reside in villages for about a week, then return to the campus to analyse and find solutions of the problems.
These problem include those related to livelihood, rural economy and industries, and are not solely confined to agri-business.
After the problems are analysed, recommendations are given to the sarpanch or any other authority in the units visited by the students, said Prateek Golecha, a second year PGP (ABM) student, recalling his last year’s experience.
Student groups visit the villages twice, first to find out the problems and then to submit their recommendations.
IIM-A Professor Pradyumana Khokle, an organisational behaviour expert in-charge of designing these field trips, said it was an attempt at exposing students to rural life as not all of them have a rural background.
Asked if any of these recommendations has led to a substantial improvement in the places visited, he added: “Not that I know of, as the time spent there is too short.”
Siddharth Jaiswal, an IIM-A alumnus and an entrepreneur in the organic food sector, said their batch did manage to initiate some small changes in the coastal Andhra village they visited some four years ago.
“A particular insect had inflicted a lot of damage to the crops in the area and we approached scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, after the first trip. They obtained some insect species that fed on these insects and we released them in the village the following summer,” said Jaiswal.
He added that it was “quite a learning experience”, especially as he had to communicate with the villagers “using sign-language”. Being a north Indian, he spoke no Telegu and the villagers did not speak Hindi, he said.
Courtesy : www.indianexpress.com
Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Mehsana and Kutch in Gujarat will be covered under this study, according to IIM-A officials.
The exercise is part of the ‘rural immersion’ program in the ABM course where students reside in villages for about a week, then return to the campus to analyse and find solutions of the problems.
These problem include those related to livelihood, rural economy and industries, and are not solely confined to agri-business.
After the problems are analysed, recommendations are given to the sarpanch or any other authority in the units visited by the students, said Prateek Golecha, a second year PGP (ABM) student, recalling his last year’s experience.
Student groups visit the villages twice, first to find out the problems and then to submit their recommendations.
IIM-A Professor Pradyumana Khokle, an organisational behaviour expert in-charge of designing these field trips, said it was an attempt at exposing students to rural life as not all of them have a rural background.
Asked if any of these recommendations has led to a substantial improvement in the places visited, he added: “Not that I know of, as the time spent there is too short.”
Siddharth Jaiswal, an IIM-A alumnus and an entrepreneur in the organic food sector, said their batch did manage to initiate some small changes in the coastal Andhra village they visited some four years ago.
“A particular insect had inflicted a lot of damage to the crops in the area and we approached scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, after the first trip. They obtained some insect species that fed on these insects and we released them in the village the following summer,” said Jaiswal.
He added that it was “quite a learning experience”, especially as he had to communicate with the villagers “using sign-language”. Being a north Indian, he spoke no Telegu and the villagers did not speak Hindi, he said.
Courtesy : www.indianexpress.com
