IIM-Calcutta has to overcome the “financial challenges” in translating the great opportunities in realities, Uttam Kumar Sarkar, the B-school’s director said on Sunday on the occasion of the institute’s diamond jubilee celebration.
Sarkar who became director in August, urged the alumni to come forward and help the institute reach an enviable height.
“At this juncture, we have great opportunities, but major financial challenges in translating those to realities. And I urge all, our beloved alumni in particular, to come forward and help the institute reach enviable heights within its reach,” Sarkar said during the programme at the Joka campus.
Four alumni — K. V. Subramanian, chief economic adviser to government of India, Sunil Kumar Alagh, founder of SKA Advisors, a business advisory firm, Srinath Narsimhan, chief executive officer, Tata Trusts and Vallabh Sambamurthy, Albert. O. Nicholas Dean, Wisconsin School of Business, were conferred the distinguished alumnus award on Sunday.
An official of the institute said since the IIMs have over the years become self-financed institutions from the central government funded ones, the financial challenges have shot up and the pandemic has thrown fresh challenges. “The newer challenges included introducing facilities like hybrid classes — allowing some students to attend the lectures in person, while the others will have the sessions live-streamed to them. We have already started work on developing the facility,” he said.
“This involves a lot of investment, a financial challenge and we look up to our alumni to overcome”.
Sarkar after being appointed director on August 19 had told Metro that he looked forward to working on in areas like academic excellence and superior physical and virtual infrastructure.
A batch of former students at IIM-Calcutta from the class of 1992 had contributed Rs 3.24 crore to their alma mater in July.
Another batch has started a fund raising drive and has so far collected close to Rs 2 crore.
Some of the IIM-C students who had returned to the campus because poor net connectivity at home complained in February that the B-school lacked IT infrastructure. A teacher said, creating a more robust IT infrastructure at a time when blended learning — a combination of online and offline learning — is becoming a reality, the institute needs financial help from the alumni to make this happen.
The Institute's diamond jubilee lecture was delivered online by Dipesh Chakrabarty, a professor of History at the The University of Chicago. He spoke on “Business Education in the Anthropocene: Some Questions For Our Times”.