PR tie up for George Telegraph

Updated on: Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Kolkata: Introducing a professional course in public relations that would prepare a new generation of hopefuls in new-age PR techniques, the George Telegraph Group recently announced a tie-up with Public Relation Society of India (PRSI-Kolkata Chapter).

Open to all basic graduates, the course will acquaint and prepare the students with exposure to internet journalism and marketing in a digital platform, social networking and exposure to modern communication gadgets apart from the standard - attitude building and motivation, events planning and coordination, and social research.

Available at the George Telegraph Centre in Sealdah, the course is a new take on vocational studies. Offering students the chance to specialise, this course can be applicable to those students who have a basic liberal arts degree, and aid them in a specialised job-market approach to their careers. The institute is known for it’s approaches in providing vocational training young people of average merit, so that they are equipped with a set of relevant skills which in turn would lead to a more streamlined approach to their careers.

Talking about their aim as an institution, Subrata Dutta, director, George Telegraph Group said their aim is to make underachievers into useful, successful candidates in the job market. “For those who cannot become engineers, or doctors, this is what we offer,” said Dutta.

The students of the course will automatically be members of PRSI and will thus be able to attend PRSI events and also interact with a large group of distinguished PR professionals. Talking about the scope of PR in Kolkata as compared to other metros Dutta said, “Yes, the PR market of Kolkata does lag behind, but it is definitely getting wider.”

Soumyajit Mahapatra, secretary, PRSI - Kolkata Chapter spoke of the institute as “A professional body taking the lead to showing the path”. “PR is everywhere”, said Mahapatra, “from buses to trams to offices, and we by introducing this course are popularising PR education and techniques.”

Rita Bhimani, member of PRSI and PR Consultant spoke of the aim of this course to throw up more people who will be trained to handle PR in every area imaginable, from NGOs and hospitals, to hotels. “PR is about community relations and crisis management,” said Rita, “and it has now become a powerful management tool. The one area where it has a lot of scope is government liaison. We as a country need to send representatives to people in the governments of other countries and it is all a matter of PR as to how India is represented in these forums.”

Talking about the requirement for PR in other, relevant sectors Rita said, “Now the corporates are all establishing a CSR (Corporate-social responsibility) sector. It is their way of giving back to the society from which they are taking so much and it all requires careful PR in order to function well.”

Public Relations is the newest addition to the skill-oriented courses of the George Telegraph Training Institute and by adding the element of mass communication to the PR, they are set to prepare a new set of professionals who will restructure and widen the PR market in Kolkata.

PR tie up for George Telegraph

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