Heading towards the village

Updated on: Monday, June 01, 2009

Have you heard of anyone leaving a cushy corporate job for a placement in the development sector? Well, P. Pratheep did just that. An alumnus of the National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, Pratheep joined a rural management course at the Xavier’s Institute of Management, Bhubaneshwar (XIMB). He had never expected to be in the corporate sector so soon but a management consultancy firm recruited him during a campus placement.

Earlier, rural management students worked only in non-government organisations but today the corporate sector is wooing them as the need for rural management graduates has shot up in the recent years and more and more companies are turning to rural markets in a big way.

The rural environment is complex and you need to have a high level of commitment towards rural India in order to succeed in the profession. “You cannot love an air-conditioned office ambience and yet want to work in the rural environment,” says Kolkata-based counsellor Shekhar Niyogi. You also need to have excellent communication skills as the rural audience could be a tough one. After all, villagers have their own priorities that may not match ours. Remember the Singur catastrophe?

So, if you are still interested in this career option, here is some information. Rural management is often offered as a postgraduate programme, but it is possible to gain basic insights into the profession through courses in rural economics in a Bachelors degree programme. You could also specialise in rural development in a Bache-lors degree course in social work.

Institutes like Institute of Rural Management in Anand (IRMA), XIMB and the Institute of Rural Management (IRM), Jaipur offer a two-year postgraduate diploma in rural management. Admission is based on an entrance examination, group discussion and personal interview. IRMA also offers a doctoral programme in the subject.

In the last five years, the number of applications has been rising at XIMB and IRMA. But this year, a record rise of 50 per cent was seen in the number of applications. Niraj Kumar, faculty member, XIMB explains that, “over the last five years, the number of applications has been rising at the rate of 20 to 30 per cent on an average.” This year, more than 15,000 students took IRMA’s entrance exam for about 100 seats. Last year, 10,000 students had appeared for the exam. The dramatic rise in applications shows that the field is gradually gaining in importance.

Besides the corporate sector, rural management graduates can work in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), co-operatives, developmental organisations and funding agencies. Microfinance units in banks and development organisations are also hiring students like never before. “After all students know how to market goods in rural pockets. They act as facilitators between the service provider and the customer,” says Niyogi. Students of IRM work in banks and companies like Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, SKS Microfinance, IndusInk Bank, Escorts, and State Bank of India.

It’s wrong to think that rural managers are paid less than their urban counterparts. In fact, they are paid more as they reside in rural areas. The average annual salary of a rural management graduate is Rs 5.5 lakh, which is equivalent to what business management graduates have been paid this year. Around 30 organisations participated in the campus recruitment at XIMB and the highest salary offered was Rs 8 lakh per annum. With such good salaries being offered to rural management graduates, people are no longer looking at rural management as a poor cousin of business management.

Deccanchronicle

Heading towards the village

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