Student Achievements

PGDRM 40 participants win competition by NAARM

Three participants from the 40th batch of IRMA’s flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management, or the PGDRM, have won a content creation competition organised by National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM), Hyderabad.

Lava Kaushik, Praneet Garg and Simran Simmi of Team Mind Benders participated in and won Ideas – 360: The Content Creation Competition. The competition was centred around content creation for Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in which Mind Benders chose the topic of FPO Lifecycle and created a video explaining the relevance, purpose, advancements as well as the road ahead for FPOs in India. They also touched upon how the current agricultural system can transform with the help of Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) aggregating farmer outputs. The content also focused on laying down the protocol of initiating an FPO/FPC in India.

The competition saw participation from 394 teams across various B-schools in India.

PGDRM 41 participants secure second place in National Agri B-Plan competition by IABM, Bikaner

Four participants from the 41st batch (2020-22) of IRMA’s flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management, or the PGDRM, have secured second place in a National Agri B-Plan competition organised by the Institute of Agri Business Management (IABM), Bikaner.

Abhilasha Patra, Abhishek Betal, Piyush Mahapatra, and Sourav Sarkar participated in The Next Seed and their B-Plan on Recreational Advanced Farming to reduce stress and anxiety. The idea, called Farm on the Rocks, focused on building gardening as a hobby to reduce emotional stress. It proposed a recreational faming business which intends to be the most potent recreational activity for people dealing with stress issues. The business also envisaged a time when farming will no longer be stigmatized by the upper class but rather employ them as the flag bearer of a new movement.

87 B-Schools from across the country participated in the event and only 11 best ideas were selected to present their B-Plan in the final round.

PGDRM 40 participants win case study competition by NIAM

Two participants from the 40th batch of IRMA’s flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management, or the PGDRM, have secured second place in a case study competition organised by the National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM).

Praneet Garg and Rohankumar Makwana participated in Vivechan – Case Study Competition and presented business solutions for an unnamed company. With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the poultry cornmeal demand, Praneet and Rohan were required to present a detailed solution with respect to logistics, investments, infrastructure, trading strategy and supply chain arrangement for the corn business of the company. The solutions encompassed the following paradigms:

1. Short-term business protection and sustainability for 1-2 years
2. Long-term strategy for unlocking potential, keeping the reforms as well as the market situation in mind for 5-7 years

362 teams from 160 institutes around the country registered for the competition. Only six best abstracts were selected to present their case study presentation in the final round.

IRMA participants win business proposal competition by Government of Bihar

Two participants from IRMA’s flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management (PGDRM) have won a business proposal competition organized by the District Administration, East Champaran, Government of Bihar.

Indupriya Tullimilli from PGDRM 40 (2019-21) and Munish Tiwari from PGDRM 39 (2018-20) won the competition named, Pariyojana Izzat.

Pariyojana Izzat is an initiative of District Administration, East Champaran, Bihar and its objective is to revolutionise menstrual hygiene and to create a vibrant rural ecosystem aware of maintaining personal and menstrual hygiene by regular use of oxo-biodegradable Suvidha sanitary pads, which are available through the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Kendra (PMBJAK) launched by Government of India.

The participants proposed innovative ways to ensure seamless availability of Suvidha pads to rural women in East Champaran district using the existing JEEViKA setup of women’s Self Help Groups (SHGs).

IRMA participants win case study competition by Arghyam

Two teams of participants from the 40th batch of IRMA’s flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management (PGDRM) have jointly won a case study competition by Arghyam.

The two teams are Akanksha Srivastava, Kanupriya Mittal and Tavishi Gupta as well as Sharad Raj Utsav, Praneet Garg and Rohankumar Makwana.

The teams presented strategies on simplifying the implementation for stakeholders of the Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABY), a groundwater management scheme of the Govt. of India. This involved providing a new approach to designing organograms of various entities involved in the programme at national, state, district and gram panchayat levels. This redesign also considered establishing channels for funds distribution and KPIs, among others.

The findings of the two teams work are shared with the Ministry of Jal Shakti and the partners. They’ve also been provided the opportunity to prepare written, audio and video content pertaining to ABY to be made available on the India Water Portal.

PGDRM 40 participants featured by YourStory for work on Project Setu

Two participants from the 40th batch of IRMA’s flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management (PGDRM); Pratiksha Sune and Rajitha Tammineni; have been featured by YourStory for their work on Project Setu, an initiative that focuses on sourcing COVID-19 related information from credible sources and disseminating the same.

Project Setu has been developed by two alumni of the Netaji Subhas University of Technology; Mayank Jain and Dheeraj Kaushik; and Ishani Mehta, a public policy consultant. With the help of volunteers, the initiative sources information from ICMR-approved MyGov.in website, translates it into various regional languages, and designs posters for easy communication.

While Pratiksha heads translation efforts, Rajitha handles volunteer facilitation for Project Setu. Other participants from the 39th and 40th batches of PGDRM rallied together in volunteering for the initiative in large numbers as well.

IRMA participants win TATA Crucible 2020 Anand Regional Round

Two participants from the 39th and 40th batch of IRMA’s flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management (PGDRM); Amrit Visa and Shashank Rakesh, won the first prize at the TATA Crucible 2020 Anand Regional Round.

Amrit and Shashank were one of the 5 teams out of 10 that qualified for the final round for the Crucible campus quiz that was also hosted by IRMA for the third year in a row. In the previous years, IRMA participants have been first and second runners-up to the competition.

The participants have now progressed to the zonal round of the famous quiz competition that seeks to bring together sharpest young minds in India to take on the heat of the toughest business quiz in India.

The chief guest Prof Pratik Modi, Professor in the area of Marketing at IRMA, appreciated the teams and the quiz while giving away the prizes.

IRMA participant gets incubation support from NESCO Foundation

Ayushi Agrawal, a participant from the 40th batch of IRMA’s flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management (PGDRM), has received an incubation support by NESCO Foundation as a contest winner.

The contest was held in three stages: proposal submission, presentation and interview. Ayushi’s proposal involved setting up sanitary pad vending machines and enhancing services in sleeper buses across India where the pads will be procured from women-run enterprises in rural areas of the country.

Ayushi has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for 18 months has become an incubatee of the NESCO Foundation.

The contest was held at the Startup Sankrant 2020 event in which the Incubator for Social Enterprises and Entrepreneurs for Development (ISEED) at IRMA was a knowledge partner.

The NESCO Foundation For Innovation And Development has recently set up an incubator in Anand region with Entrepreneurship Development Institute Of India (EDII) as an ecosystem partner.