NTPC ties up with IIM-A to set up full-fledged B-school

New Delhi: India’s largest power utility NTPC Ltd on Tuesday joined hands with Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) to establish a management school in Noida near Delhi that would offer specialized courses on energy management and work as a policy think tank.

“We have bigger plans...it will be a full-fledged B-School with a specialized focus on energy sector - both fossil and renewables,” said Saptarshi Roy, director (human resource) at NTPC. “We don’t have enough management schools who are offering specialised management courses in the energy sector and we would like to be the go-to place in the next few years,” Roy added.

Officials of NTPC and IIM-A told reporters that apart from offering courses for executives and fresh graduates, the school will work as a policy think tank to help government departments and corporates in India’s power sector with an installed capacity of 330 gigawatt (GW) through research and consultancy.

“The energy space in India is changing with a new focus on solar, wind etc., and then there is talk of a huge shift towards electric vehicles...where will you get the manpower from,” said Sunil Kumar Maheshwari, a professor at IIM-A, referring to the need of such a specialised school and why IIM-A joined hands with NTPC.

Maheshwari, who will head a group of professors from IIM-A to help NTPC achieve its goal said the energy sector has a good potential for creating demand for talents and unless manpower is trained, it will be tough to achieve scale.

India’s renewable energy sector is expected to generate more than 330,000 new jobs over the next five years (2017-2022), according to a report by World Resources Institute (WRI) released in November. India is aiming to install 175 gigawatt (GW) of renewable power by 2022. “Energy sector offers huge opportunity - both in terms of research and consultancy - and going forward, we would explore to work with organisations like NITI Aayog and other ministries both in the centre and states,” said G.C. Tripathi, deputy director general (academics) at NTPC.

He said some 20 acres have been identified in Noida for the school.

“We wish to create a strong research and policy centre. To create manpower for this centre, the NTPC school shall be the ideal institute to take lead and this will become a centre of excellence for policy research and policy documentation,” Maheshwari said.

Maheshwari said IIM-A will help in designing the course, teaching, helping in faculty recruitment and working on joint projects. IIM-A will not offer its MBA degrees to the new school.

Authorities said NTPC has obtained required approval from All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to offer two-year post graduate courses. Both NTPC’s school and IIM-A will share intellectual property rights (IPR) over new products developed as part of the joint research.

“When IIM-A was established in early 1960s, we got handholding from Harvard. Now, we want to handhold the NTPC school to become a reputed school like IIM-A,” Maheshwari added.