IIM-Vizag director gets second term, built performance institute in last five years – Times of India

From taking baby steps from the 2015-16 academic year, the institute of national importance has made its mark and carved out a distinct place for itself among the IIMs.

As the founder director, Prof Chandrasekhar played a key role in building a performance institution, brick by brick, over the last five years. He was instrumental in planning and executing several first-mover endeavors and initiatives.

In an interview to TOI, Prof Chandrasekhar explained his journey in the last five years at IIM-V and his vision for the coming five years.

“Our vision would be to rank among the top 20 business schools of the country in the next five years. We will continue to encourage and incentivise faculty members to pursue activities based on their strength and interests; and excel in teaching, research, and/or allied knowledge areas.

“We have submitted our application under NIRF 2022 and look forward to being benchmarked favorably vis-à-vis industry standards and best practices. Raising the internal resource generation to meet operating expenses, as a step towards self-sufficiency and sustainability, would be yet another priority area,” said the IIM-Vizag director.

The premier business school recently brought out a ‘start-up and innovation policy’, with an allocation of 1% of the expenditure budget towards an innovation fund, to encourage students to venture into entrepreneurship and provide them seed funding, prototype grants, etc.

“IIM-V is the only IIM to have such a Board-approved innovation policy. It is envisaged that students would avail the benefits of the policy beginning 2022. IIM Visakhapatnam has been encouraging its students to pursue the path of entrepreneurship,” said the director.

When asked about the good governance mantra of IIM-Visakhapatnam, Prof Chandrasekhar said that the Institute has put robust checks and balances and internal controls in place, leading to practically ‘nil’ comments in internal audit and CAG audit reports, over the years.

“We were the first IIM to publish the Regulations under the IIM Act, 2017, which were circulated among all the other IIMs as a model to follow. We are the first ever institution to complete the design and engineering and upload 1,800 good-for-construction drawings at the time of tendering itself for selecting the contractor for the construction of our permanent campus. This has resulted in practically ‘nil’ design changes on site. We are also the first ever institution in the country to host on IIM-V’s website, a drone-captured video of the progress of construction of the permanent campus, every fortnight,” said Prof Chandrasekhar.

The IIM-V director added that as a further exemplification of good governance, the Institute has been scoring ‘excellent’ rating on most of the operational parameters in the Board-approved MoU signed with the union education ministry, every year.

When asked about his reflections on looking back over his past five years as director of the Institute, Prof Chandrasekhar said that he believes that he succeeded to a great extent in providing a stimulating learning environment for the students, and a rewarding and fulfilling work environment for the teaching staff. “Helping both to bring out their best has been a top priority. We are attracting students and faculty who have the choice of joining an IIM closer home. This speaks volumes of what we are, what we stand for and the value that our key stakeholders see in us,” said Prof Chandrasekhar.

Speaking about the challenges for business schools and management education, the IIM-Vizag Director added that a big challenge is ensuring that the learning-outcomes are indexed to the needs of the market and expectations of the society, which change very dynamically. “This requires that the knowledge imparted is current with context and contemporary in content. Due attention should be paid to imparting integrated learning of system skills, soft skills, and social skills, helping the students gain a holistic perspective and well-rounded exposure. Innovative curricula and imaginative pedagogy should be the cornerstone of the teaching-learning processes. The design, development and delivery of academic programs should be such that they make the students professionally-competent, socially-responsible, and ethically-conscious,” said Prof M Chandrasekhar.

IIM-Visakhapatnam emerged as a sought-after source for capacity-building by the public and private sector enterprises. In 2020-21 alone, the institute delivered as many as 16,250 participant-hours of training, for 620 beneficiaries.