Vital Statistics

WHAT IS IT? One of India’s top B-schools. HOW CHEAP IS IT? Arguably the cheapest quality B-school in India with an annual fee, including courseware, of Rs 40,000. HOW ABOUT JOBS? JBIMS has a students' committee for co-ordinating placements. It enjoys a 100 per cent placement record. Some of the best companies conduct campus interviews here. WHERE TO STAY? Being affiliated to the Mumbai University, JBIMS has 80 seats each in the university hostels for boys, girls and international students. WHERE IS IT? BIMS, 162, Backbay Reclamation, H.T. Parekh Marg, Mumbai 400020. Phone: (022) 22024164. Fax: 22856905. E-mail: jbims@vsnl.com, Website: www.jbims.edu

If you expect a large campus like the IIMs or aesthetically and expensively done up interiors, this is not the place. Walking through the red-coloured Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), you feel you are in the innards of a bureaucratic institution. Tucked away in a boulevard of gulmohar trees, packed bumper to bumper with cars, it is the quality of education imparted at this 40-year-old institute that makes it among of the most sought-after B-schools in India.

JBIMS was one of the first management institutes in India at a time when the concept of a B-school was yet to evolve and the IIMs had still not come into being. The idea of setting up such a institute was conceived by Prof. C.. Vakil who taught at the Mumbai University?s economics department. So, in 1963, it was set up and christened the Department of Management Studies. A year later, the Bajaj family donated Rs 5,00,000 to construct the four-storeyed building and the institute was named after the eminent Gandhian, Jamnalal Bajaj.

?Quality research in management and development is our core strength,? says Dr R.K. Jadhav, who joined the faculty in 1998 and became director in 2002.

A look at the JBIMS alumni demonstrates this ? Chanda Kochhar and Lalita Gupte who have nurtured ICICI, India?s largest private sector bank, Uday Kotak, who has steered the Kotak group and pathbreaking filmmaker Mani Ratnam.

JBIMS? most sought-after course is the two-year full- time masters programme in management studies. The course was started in 1965 in association with the Graduate Business School, Stanford University. Graduate students have to undergo the standard three-tier selection procedure including a common entrance test, a group discussion, and a personal interview for the 120 seats on offer.

The institute also offers three-year part-time masters degree programmes in financial management, marketing management, human resource development, information management, a business consultancy studies programme for chartered accountants and a doctoral programme in management studies.

JBIMS has a formidable faculty picked from some of the leading corporate companies. Students can use its library which has over 65,000 titles and has been listed in the World Guide to Libraries. It has a well-developed computer centre providing 24x7 Internet connectivity and an auditorium for guest lectures and special seminars.

Apart from its core courses, what is more exciting for students is the range of other activities. JBIMS organises an annual convention, Strategym where corporate leaders and students get to interact. Several student research papers presented at Strategym have been picked up by the industry for implementation.

In Strategym 2003, personalities like Gurcharan Das, former CEO of Procter and Gamble, Arun Adhikari, executive director, Hindustan Lever, Rajeev Bakshi, CEO, Pepsi, Ronnie Screwvala, CEO, UTV, Ajay Piramal, CMD, Nicholas Piramal, Lalita Gupte, Joint MD, ICICI Bank participated.

?I chose JBIMS because I think it gives the best return on investment. I get the best education at an affordable Rs 40,000. No other B-school has a fee structure which is less than Rs 1 lakh per annum,? says 25-year-old Swapnil Shah, member of the corporate relations committee and a second year MMS student.

Classmate Garima Dipti, says, ?Bajaj has a great reputation. I never looked at any other B-school. If I hadn?t got through JBIMS, I perhaps wouldn?t have bothered to get into management studies.? Dipti was one of the four students who implemented a management project in tribal villages in Naxalite-troubled Bhamragad in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.

Old memories

Chanda Kochhar, executive director, ICICI Bank, takes a walk down memory lane

I WAS PART of the 1982-84 batch of students at JBIMS. I think it was the best management institute around. I didn’t apply to any other institute. Looking back, I think it was a very bold decision because the norm was to apply to at least four to five institutes.

While I was in second year of the course, I was called for an interview by ICICI. Those days, ICICI was not very active in campus placements, but would interview only the course topper. My first interview was done by K.V. Kamat himself. I didn’t even wait for my exam results. A week after my exams were over, I joined ICICI. The best feature of the JBIMS course was the faculty. A number of professionals active in the corporate world would teach us and take us beyond textbook knowledge.

Later, I came back to my alma mater to teach finance and financial management. I taught at JBIMS for four years but as work pressure increased, I found it difficult to continue.

I was a serious student, but I remember having instigated the class to go for mass bunking a few times. Somehow, the professors never suspected that I could be the one to initiate bunking!

AS TOLD TO SATISH NANDGAONKAR