Update on IIM Shillong

Just noticed, it's Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management Shillong. RGIIM? As anyone who's attended an IIT or IIM would know the acronym 'RG' is strangely ironic!

Actually more than the name it's the location which will RG this new effort. That's what happened to IIM Kozhikode. In an insightful column published in Mint Premchand Palety notes :

There is no direct flight from Delhi to Kozhikode. The only Indian Airlines flight goes via Mumbai and it takes six hours. After the usual delay, the flight finally landed in Kozhikode...

...From the airport, it is a 45-minute drive to the IIM-K, which is located at Kunnamangalam, a small town famous for a large number of small, green hills. Situated on two hillocks, the institute is a great place for nature lovers... Had the government set up a resort there instead of an IIM, it would have been an instant success.

Based on feedback from students, faculty and a former director Palety concludes:

“Setting an IIM in a place so far away from industry is a mistake. Setting the same campus in Cochin would have been a relatively better idea.”

I'm guessing the next best option for an IIM Shillong is to combine placements with an IIM Calcutta. But what about faculty? Once again it boils down to social objectives over practical ones. But that's the pound of flesh the government takes for its funding.

So where would I recommend setting up new IITs/ IIMs? In the general proximity of large metros. For example: New Bombay or Pune (near Mumbai), Gurgaon, Jaipur or Chandigarh (near Delhi). Even a destination like Goa with great connectivity.

Meanwhile if we can have an RGIIM we can well imagine an RTIIM (Ratan Tata IIM), SMIIM (Sunil Mittal IIM) and so on and so forth. After all who were 'Harvard' and 'Stanford' but wealthy donors?