The Hindu Business Line : IIFT to start new campus in Kolkata

THE Delhi-based Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) is launching its second campus in the country at Kolkata for the 2006-08 batch. The new campus would have 60 seats initially. The college has 120 seats at its New Delhi campus. With the Kolkata campus, the annual intake of students at IIFT would go up to 180.

The West Bengal Government has identified eight acres of land for the campus, said Dr. Ravi Shankar, Chairman, Graduate Study Division, IIFT. The Ministry of Commerce, which set up the college at New Delhi, has granted Rs 10 crore for the new campus. The college is hopeful of obtaining clearance from the Universities Grant Commission for the Kolkata campus in about a month, he added.

Placement: Back at the New Delhi campus, a number of corporates are queueing up to deliver the pre-placement talks to the students with the formal placements scheduled for the first week of February for the 2004-2006 batch. Companies that have already delivered the pre-placement talks include ICICI, Accenture, Jindal Steel and CSC among others. More than 75 companies would confirm for placement this year, said Prof. Munish Bhargava, Placement Head, IIFT.

These companies would range from sectors like FMCG, financial services, IT and trading, he said. "Last year, 30 per cent of the students were hired by IT firms. But this year we expect financial services and FMCG companies to hire more students," said Prof. Bhargava.

Speaking about the composition of the students who would take part in the placements in February, Prof Bhargava said about half of them have 0-1 year of experience while the other half have more than one year of experience. Seventy two per cent of the students have engineering background, 11 per cent have commerce and eight per cent have science background.

IIFT, founded 40 years ago, offers a two-year degree in Master of Business Administration in International Business. The average salary for the 2003-05 batch was Rs 7.28 lakh.