| Institute of Rural Management Anand | |
| Motto: | Empowering rural people through sustaining processes |
| Established: | 1979 |
| Type: | Autonomous |
| State: | Gujarat |
| Country: | India |
| Campus: | Urban, 60acres |
| Website: | www.irma.ac.in |
| Pushpin Map: | India Gujarat |
Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) is an autonomous institution and premier business school located in Anand Gujarat, India with the mandate of contributing to the professional management of rural organizations. IRMA was founded with the belief, borne out by Verghese Kurien’s work in the dairy co-operatives which revolutionized the dairy industry in the country (Operation Flood), that the key to effective rural development is professional management.[1] It is considered as the best business school in the Rural and Agricultural Business Management Sector of India.[2]
The Institute was established with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Corporation, the Government of India, the erstwhile Indian Dairy Corporation, the NDDB (National Dairy Development Board) and the Government of Gujarat. The IRMA campus was designed by the famous architect Achyut Kanvinde.
The annual convocation at the college is known for its display of Indian culture and traditions. In 2022, the convocation was graced by Amit Shah, the Hon'ble Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Cooperation, Government of India, as the Chief Guest[3] as well as former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi attended IRMA's first annual conference in 1982.[4]
Michael Halse, then a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) planning adviser with NDDB,[5] [6] was one of the members responsible for conceptualizing this new discipline of rural management.[7] Another person involved with the institute was the organizational behavior academic Dr. Kamla Chowdhry,[8] [9] [10] who also served briefly as the director of the institute and played a key mentoring role in its formative years.[11] The former director of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Ravi J. Matthai contributed; through his documented learning from the Jawaja experiment.[12] Matthai stressed the need for a new type of management education, different from the conventional Indian Institute of Management one: for working on rural development problems.[13]
The institute was initially budgeted as a center for management and consultancy for rural development, under the second phase of the Operation Flood program. Under the chairmanship of Dr. Verghese Kurien, IRMA evolved quickly to enlarge its mandate to professionalize management of rural producers’ organizations and create a body of knowledge in the field of rural management.
One of the pioneering and senior faculty in the initial years was anthropologist and equity-feminist scholar Leela Dube. One of her studies, through field work in five Southeast Asian countries, put the organization on the international social science research map.[14] [15]
Beginning with co-operatives funded by NDDB, IRMA has reached out to the rural sector through development organizations engaged with issues of rural life such as natural resource management (especially water and forests), rural health, local governance institution, livelihood, migration, micro finance, and deploying IT for rural areas.
Since inception, the focus of IRMA has been on strengthening the management capacities in non-governmental organizations and organizations that are controlled by users of the services (rather than the conventional capital investor-centered business corporate). IRMA claims that its branding and commitment to a unique field of management makes it unique among management institutes of India.[16]
IRMA offers various full-time and part time postgraduate programmes, leading to an MBA degree. It also offers diploma programmes.
IRMA offers different academic programs and has admission processes and eligibility respectively. The selection process for admission in PGDM(RM), FPM(RM), RM(X) and MDPs. varies depending on the nature of program one opts for. IRMA accepts scores from common entrance exams like CAT and XAT. Other major aspects for admission are academic performance and work experience.
IRMA also conducts its Written Ability Test (WAT) and Personal Interviews (PI) of selected candidates. If a candidate opts for selected offline mode for giving Personal Interview, she / he is given option of Anand, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, and Kolkata.
| Type: | University and college |
| Nirf B 2023: | 54 |
| Outlook B P 2022: | 20 |
IRMA was ranked 55th in the Management category of the 2021 ranking of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). It was ranked 17th in Outlook's "Top Private MBA Institutions" of 2022.
IRMA was ranked 5th Best B School in Chronicle India B- School Survey 2019,[17] IRMA was ranked 5th best B-school among the top 75 private B-schools of India and 10th overall among the top 100 B-schools of India, as per Times B-School Survey 2019.[18] IRMA Ranked 8th in UTD Top 10 Indian Business School Ranking for Research.[19]
To commemorate the memory of the founder of the Institute, the annual "Dr. Verghese Kurien Memorial Lecture" has been instituted from 2012, to be held on his birth anniversary.[20]
The campus is fully residential and equipped with student hostels, mess, lecture halls, seminar rooms, library, faculty and administrative offices, auditorium, executive training and development center, faculty and staff housing, dispensary, and other support facilities. The IRMA staff co-operative store caters to the residents’ daily necessities. Faculty and staff live in the campus quarters provided, thereby providing facilities for interaction with the participants beyond classrooms.
The library is named after Prof. Ravi J Matthai, one of the founder members of the Institute and was formally inaugurated by the then Prime Minister of India, late Shri Rajiv Gandhi, on March 22, 1986. The Library supports the mission of IRMA through the provision of information resources and services. The library provides the academic community with information for fulfilling research requirements, coursework assignments, and professional development. This is achieved through collection development, networking, electronic information retrieval, instruction in search strategy and assisted access to an array of resources and data.
The Executive Training and Development Center (ETDC) is equipped with 40 single-occupancy air-conditioned rooms, a dining hall, and a lounge. It has uninterrupted internet services through a 150-Mbps radio link. This accommodation facility is available for executive training programmes and conferences planned by the faculty.