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| Edited By: Niyati Rana |Source: |Updated: Nov 29, 2011, 02:34 PM IST
Before the dust could settle down on Satish Pradhan’s 'pushkar fair' comment on B-school placements, it has literally come back to haunt the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA).
Students of two courses - the flagship Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) and PGP Agri Business Management (PGP-ABM) were interviewed by a company but offered packages poles apart. This discrimination by the potential employers towards students of other than the flagship course has left many crying foul. The offer made to ABM students was about a third of that made to the PGP for internship.
A source close to the development said, "A company interviewed one student each from the PGP and PGP-ABM courses for the summer internship. While PGP student was offered Rs70,000 per month stipend, the PGP-ABM student was offered Rs25,000 per month. This has left ABM students wondering why such glaring differentiation between students studying courses of same institute," said the source.
Sources say that such incidents have taken place in the past as well where same recruiters have offered different internship stipend to PGP and PGP- ABM students. Students say that there is no need to offer such different stipend as the syllabus remains the same for both courses in first year.
This has apparently resulted in cold vibes amongst students. The dorms are abuzz with discussions on whether such differentiation is healthy for the institute or should the matter be taken up with the placement committee asking them to give fair treatment to PGP- ABM students during placements.
"Recruiters should know that difference in syllabus comes only in second year as ABM students choose agri business as their specialisation," explained a student.
Accepting the difference in treatment to the PGP and PGP-ABM students and course, the student, however, said that the incident should be taken in right perspective and as a healthy competition and not as a form of discrimination.
Students' placement committee member Atreyi Bose said "Our review of the stipends offered for PGP and PGP-ABM placements do not reveal any differential packages. IIMA follows the Indian Placement Reporting Standards whereby we don't report on individual stipend and report only whether stipend has been paid or not."
