Journey of Becoming India's Best B-School

I started applying my mind how the institute could build its brand and attain visibility at the national level after joining BIMTECH at its old campus in Pushp Vihar, New Delhi on September 2, 1999. Having known the growth trajectory of reputed B’schools in India and worldwide, I could identify one primary raison d’etre i.e. a residential campus with state-of-the-art facilities for students and faculty.India.

After wide consultation with leading management educationists, I prepared the ‘Vision-2005’ document and submitted it to the management. The major focus of this document was to build a residential campus with an objective of getting recognized among the top 25 B’schools of India by the year 2005. It was necessary because our premises at Birla Vidya Niketan, Pushp Vihar, New Delhi was very modest and without a residential character.

My predecessor, Dr C B Gupta, a legendary academician (ex-Principal, SRCC, Delhi and Founder Director, IMT, Ghaziabad) was designated by the management as the Advisor. He advised me to try with the DDA for getting a two acre plot in Delhi. DDA, being a typical bureaucratic body, was not willing to help us and scuttled the proposal with some flimsy legal objections.

I saw an advertisement in the India Today in January 2002 in which, the Greater Noida Authority (GNIDA) offered institutional land for educational institutions.

The matter was discussed with the management and I sought their permission to submit our application. 3Our advisor, Dr CB Gupta, was not in favour of moving the campus from New Delhi to Greater Noida, due to fears of losing locational advantages of South Delhi. Meantime, for expanding the geographic base of our student population, we had started hostels in rented premises at Sarvapriya Vihar and Devri Road. It was a tough decision and full of challenges. I continued to convince our management that having a residential campus was a sine-qua non for a good B’school and there was no harm in setting up a campus at Greater Noida.

We submitted an application for getting institutional land from the GNIDA at the Knowledge Park in the last week of January, 2002. At that time there were hardly a few institutions at Greater Noida and reaching the city was also difficult because the Expressway was not ready and access through Dadri – Surajpur side was always cumbersome.

When GNIDA called us for a meeting and making a presentation about our plans for setting up a campus at Greater Noida, we identified a student of PGDM II year to make the presentation.

On March 21, 2002 the presentation was made. The CEO of GNIDA was very impressed by the presentation and he asked me about the presenter. When I told him that he was a student, it was a big surprise for him. That student was Anshul Verma, who later joined BIMTECH as a faculty and worked with us till 2013.

Foundation of the BIMTECH Campus Building

We were offered 20 acres land, but we could not take more than 7.5 acres due to limited budget for the project. We were allotted 30,000 sq.mtr. plot on May 4, 2002 in Knowledge Park II. We were offered Plot No.5 which was still in possession of a farmer, who was not willing to vacate the plot due to his dispute over compensation with the GNIDA. We took help from Mr Nawab Singh Nagar, the local MLA and the then Irrigation Minister in the Government of Uttar Pradesh. Ultimately the dispute with the landowner was resolved by the GNIDA and we got possession of the land on August 14, 2003.

During 2003-04, our finance department did a lot of hard work in estimating the project cost and its short term and long term financial viability. Shri C S Chajjer was looking after this work. A series of meetings were held with Shri RN Jaju, Dr C B Gupta and Shri U N Vajpeyi. I used to visit ECE House, Connaught Place almost every alternate day for discussing the financial and other matters related to the Greater Noida Project.

Syt B K B Birla and Dr (Smt) Sarala Birla, our Founder and Patrons, took keen interest in the Greater Noida Project. They asked Shri Pratap Parikh, an eminent architect of New Delhi to take up this assignment. Since Shri Parikh had worked with BK Birla Group for a long time on several projects, he knew very well their aesthetic requirements. Both Syt Birla ji and Dr (Smit) Birla ji visited the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad in 2002 to meet Ms Vidula, their grand-daughter, who was at that time studying at ISB as a full time MBA student.

The visit of Syt Birla ji and Dr (Smt) Birla ji to ISB, Hyderabad opened many possibilities for us because the overall concept, design, layout, facilities at ISB, Hyderabad were liked by our Founders. They desired that before finalizing designs and layouts of the Greater Noida Campus, we should see the ISB Campus at Hyderabad. I accompanied Shri RN Jaju and Shri Pratap Parikh to ISB, Hyderabad. We saw its academic building, hostels and briefed the management about the architecture of the ISB Campus. The designs of the library, central atrium, classrooms and hostels were liked by us.Shri Pratap Parikh & Associates were engaged as the architects for the Greater Noida Project. They took more than eight months to prepare the architectural layouts and designs. On Ramnavami of 2003, a meeting was held at Mangalam, the Delhi residence of Syt BK Birla and Dr (Smt) Sarala Birla, where a multi-media presentation was made by Shri Pratap Parikh. On this auspicious day, final layout and design was approved by our Founders and Patrons.Before sanctioning funds for the Greater Noida project, Syt Birla ji, in the august presence of Dr (Smt) Sarala Birla, Smt Jayashree Mohta and Shri RN Jaju asked me whether I would work for a long time with the institute. I told them that my commitment for BIMTECH would be lifelong. It was a big commitment from my side and I was aware of its implications. For me, it was a great occasion to see the realization of a big dream.

The realization of the dream

When we were very near to the new date of shifting i.e. August 19, 2004, many doubts arose as some of the basic facilities and requirements of the campus were not ready. It was a big dilemma because we were to choose between either postponement of shifting or facing the ordeal of shifting. After a lot of discussions among the management, faculty and students, ultimately a final decision was taken to shift on August 19, 2004.

Our administrative officials, Mr YS Agarwal, Mr Rajib Sharma and Mr Vinod Mahipal managed the gigantic exercise of shifting furniture, library equipments and luggages of students and faculty. During rainy season, it was not an easy operation. Ultimately, we landed at the campus on August 19, 2004 with bag and baggages. I remember the scenario on that day. Trucks and buses arrived from New Delhi with students and staff. The passions among students were very high because they were excited to live at the new campus. On the D-date, internal roads were not ready and there was a lot of mud on roads due to intermittent rains. Construction work was still going on in hostels and there were a lot of flies and mosquitoes.

BIMTECH, Top Management College in India

When some parents came to see the campus, they became annoyed and one of the parents even withdrew his ward. These parents were mainly skeptical of the distance of the campus from Delhi and also, feared of security of their wards. We tried our best to convince them that we would take care of the security and well being of their wards. The first few months were critical due to inclement weather, seepage due to defects in civl work, and also non-availability of entertainment as well as shopping facilities at Greater Noida. During the initial years at Greater Noida campus, faculty members played a very important role in grooming and mentoring the students. Several sports and recreational facilities were created. Brig. Dalip Kapoor, the then Chief Administrator of the Campus , with his vast experience in the army ,was instrumental in bringing normalcy to the campus and in providing basic services to students and faculty. On January 26, 2005 Dr Shahi Balain and Dr Manosi Chaudhuri led an excursion of 55 students to Sikkim and North West Bengal.

Creating awareness about Greater Noida

Creating awareness about Greater Noida has been a decade long exercise. We were very keen to bring eminent people to the new campus. Many a times, industry people from Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida were not willing to visit the campus due to logistic reasons. There was a psychological barrier in the minds of visitors due to poor awareness about the development of the Greater Noida as an urban destination. We had to devise different means and methods to get people to the new campus.

During the last 10 years, we could invite some of the thought leaders from India and abroad to visit the campus and address our students and faculty. The list includes His Holiness Dalai Lama, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Shri Yashwant Sinha, Dr Subramnaian Swamy, Shri Jai Ram Ramesh, Shri Oscar Fernandes, Shri Jagdish Khattar, Shri Venu Srinivasan, Shri Vinod Rai, Smt Kiran Bedi, Shri Arvind Kejriwal, Dr Prakash Amte, Shri Mahesh Bhatt, Late Farukh Sheikh, Shri Santosh Desai, Shri Hemant Kanoria, Late Dr Abid Hussain, Shri Deepak Puri, Dr Pritam Singh, Dr Jagdish Sheth, Prof M R Rao, Shri Pramath Sinha, Dr Rishikesh T Krishnan, Prof Yashpal, Shri R S Pandey, IAS, Dr Santrupt Mishra, Shri Sam Ghosh, Shri Yogi Shriram and Dr Kiran Karnik.

We have also organized many programmes on performing arts, culture and literature. In partnership with SPIC-Macay, VIRASAT – 2009 was organized in October in which very eminent artists like Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan, Pt Chhannu Lal Mishra, Pt Ronu Mazumdar, Smt Uma Sharma, Guru Singhajit Singh. On many occasions, we have invited eminent artists like Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma, Pt Rajan- Sajan Mishra, Pt Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Late Habib Tanvir, Shri Asgar Wajahat, Shri Rajendra Nath, Shri Arvind Gaur etc.

Vision 2021- The road ahead

BIMTECH is one of the few B-schools in India which has used vision building very successfully to plan its future. The first vision building exercise started in the year 2000 which took shape as the Vision – 2005. The missions under this vision were to have a residential campus and to be counted among top 25 private B’schools in India. In 2003 itself, we were ranked 17th by Business Today – AC Nielsen Ranking Survey while the Greater Noida Campus was launched in August, 2004.

In 2006, we started another exercise to draft a new vision. After discussions with all stakeholders, we could formulate the Vision-2011 which stipulated to become one of the top 10 B’schools in India and obtain the status of a Deemed University.Again in 2011, we initiated a year long vision building exercise under the leadership of Prof A Sahay. This time leading deans, directors, researchers and industry experts of the country were also involved along with faculty, staff and alumni. A new Vision-2021 came out of these deliberations. This was published as a document titled “Vision Mission & Values”.

Since 2008, we have started working to make our institute a Deemed University. The rigid regulatory norms of the AICTE were not allowing us to grow fast by adopting innovation and experimentation. An application was submitted to the MHRD in 2008 for granting us status of a Deemed University. Due to Lok Sabha elections of 2009, it got delayed and later the new minister at MHRD, Mr Kapil Sibal, decided not to issue new approval for deemed university.