The National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), the city-based B-school that is set to become the 21st Indian Institute of Management (IIM), will convert its post-graduation (PG) diploma programmes to MBAs and will also open up its campus to students who don't have an engineering background.
The institute, which will soon be known as IIM Mumbai, currently offers three two-year PG diploma courses in Industrial Management, Industrial Engineering and Sustainability Management. From the next academic year 2024, these programmes will be replaced by a general MBA course and two specialised MBA in 'Operations and Supply Chain Management' and 'Sustainability Management' respectively.
The institute believes that the change in nomenclature will help students find better employment opportunities, especially outside the country. "There has been an issue with the recognition of our degrees... Each week, we get at least a two-three emails about the equivalence of our degrees. Now, it will be a thing of the past," NITIE Director Manoj Kumar Tiwari said at a press conference held on campus on Wednesday.
Established in 1963, NITIE ranks among the country's top management institutes and is particularly recognised in 'techno-managerial' fields such as industrial engineering, operations management and supply chain. On Tuesday, both houses of the parliament passed the IIM (Amendment) Bill 2023, which among other things brought the institute under the IIM umbrella. The bill is awaiting the President's assent.
In addition to existing programmes, NITIE is planning to add MBAs in other specialisations such as Finance and Marketing as well as technology-driven courses. The institute is also looking at ways to seek the MBA tag for the current batch of students. "Bringing the course credits of PG diploma courses at par with MBA is one of the ways to do so," said Tiwari.While the institute may see an increase in fees for various courses, the director assured that it will still be less than the other new generation IIMs. "We will ensure that students get a better return on investment (ROI) compared to other institutes," he said.
Currently, the institute has an enrollment of around 1,200 students, of which around 1,000 are pursuing one of the three PG diploma courses. the director said that, for now, the institute will offer the same number of seats for the newly-christened programmes. However, with more new programmes in the pipeline, NITIE is planning to enhance its capacity by adding two new hostel buildings on campus.
As the institute joins the league of the country's premier B-schools, it hopes to have more autonomy but is also faced with the challenge of becoming financially self-sustainable. "The government doesn't provide much financial aid to the older IIMs. While the newer get some help, the support for infrastructure projects is comparatively low. We are hoping to become self-reliant within a year," said Tiwari.
