Institute of Rural Management Anand - History

History

Dr.Michael Halse, then a Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) planning advisor with NDDB,. was one of the people, responsible for conceptualizing this new discipline of rural management. Another important person involved with the institute was the noted Organizational behavior academic Dr.Kamala Chowdhary, who also served briefly as the Director of the Institute and played a key mentoring role, in its formative years. The former director of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Mr.Ravi J. Matthai also contributed; through his documented learnings from the Jawaja experiment. Mr. Ravi Mathai had stressed the need for a new type of management education, different from the conventional Indian Institute of Management one: for working on rural development problems. The Institute was initially budgeted as a center for management and consultancy for rural development, under the second phase of the Operation Flood program. Under the chairmanship of Dr.Verghese Kurien; IRMA evolved quickly to enlarge its mandate to professionalize management of rural producers’ organisations and create a body of knowledge in the field of rural management.One of the pioneering and senior faculty in the initial years, was a renowned anthropologist and feminist scholar Leela Dube. One of her studies through field work in five South East Asian countries, put the then nascent educational organisation, in the international social science research map.

In a short span IRMA has come to be recognised as a premier centre of teaching and research in rural management and has successfully created a new discipline of rural management which is being replicated by many other institutes.

Beginning with co-operatives funded by the NDDB, IRMA has reached out to the rural sector through development organisations engaged with issues of rural life such as natural resource management, especially water and forests, rural health, local governance institution, livelihoods and migration, microfinance, deploying IT for rural areas, and so on. IRMA’s vision to work for the rural people was vindicated in the early years when rural organisations — from co-operatives, NGOs, government and business sectors — began to make demands on IRMA.

Except for the business sector, IRMA has openly welcomed all these organisations. The argument being that the business corporate organisations are served by over 800 business schools in India; but there is only one IRMA to serve organisations, that work with those outside the fold of organised business: co-operatives, NGOs, and people’s organisations.Therefore, IRMA has chosen to direct its energies and output to these designated sectors. Since inception, the focus of IRMA has been on strengthening the management capacities in organisations which are controlled by users of their services; rather than the conventional capital investor centred business corporates. The Institute claims that it is this commitment which defines its organisationally: and gives it an identity that is unique among management institutes.