Xavier Institute of Management- Bhubaneswar (XIMB), a premier B-School, will not delay the intake of students for the next batch of rural management (RM ) programme notwithstanding its running feud with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) over the admission procedure for the course.
The top B-School has an intake capacity of 60 students for the programme.
"Regardless of what steps AICTE takes, we will continue with our admission process for the RM programme", said Father Paul Fernandes, Director, XIMB.
"I think we have not violated any regulations on the basis of which they (AICTE) can take any action", he added.
It may be noted that AICTE in November last year had served a show cause notice to XIMB for inviting applications for admission into the Post Graduate Diploma programme in rural management on the basis of marks scored in the admission test for Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), violating the councils norms notified in the approval process Hand Book 2013-14.
In reply to the notice, XIMB maintained that the advertisement for admission was released in the first week of September, 2012, which clearly stated that IRMA scores were taken into consideration only for rural management programme and the institute has stopped accepting applications for the programme based on IRMA test.
The Director said, the advertisement was issued before the Supreme Court verdict that allowed IRMA to conduct its test separately for this year only and the AICTE served its notice after that, when the institute had already clarified its stand through the advertisement.
XIMB had received as many as 700 applications for the RM programme basing on the IRMA test. It has refunded the application money to more than 100 candidates, while about 200 applicants have switched to CAT, 140 have opted to sit in Xavier Admission Test (XAT) and 253 candidates have opted to take the test for the programme under CMAT.
An official in admission department said, the interviews for the RM programme will be over by mid-April and the classes for all programmes will commence from mid-June.
