The loans will be valid for the new batch commencing in June this year. Not only will the loans take care of financing the studies, HDFC Bank is also offering a grace period for students so that they have to start paying back only after they are three months into their first job.

The Institute has forged the arrangement in order to bring down the cost barrier. For with the Institute planning to have a computer-with an internet connection-in each room, just the second year term fees of the school is well over Rs 78,000.

For the price though, the Institute tries to offer unique value. For example, for many students taking an MBA programme at a premier institute, the first touchstone of their market potential is the summer placement whichthey do at the end of the first year. At the SPJIMR, things are a little different. There are no corporate summer placements.

Instead, all students are required to work with socially or economically disadvantaged sectors, either in the rural area or an urban slum setting under the Institute's Development of Corporate Citizenship (DOCC) project. The `social work', however, has not impacted SPJIMR's final placement standing. That is because all the DOCC projects are getting sponsored by the very corporates which go to other institutes with regular placement offers.

So, SPJIMR has companies like P&G, HLL, Citibank, IL&FS and Tata Administrative Services sponsoring these projects either within their own social programmes or for an autonomously selected NGO-led proposal.

Innovative management techniques and products, therefore, are being led at SPJIMR -- an institute promoted by Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan -- by the Harvard-educated ML Shrikant to maintain a top ranking amongst the management schools in thecountry.

For example, a new programme christened the Family Business Management Programme was launched a few months ago and the first batch will soon be completing its term. The first programme of its kind in the country, the FBMP was evolved to address the needs of family-owned firms and in meeting the unique managerial challenges associated with operating and sustaining a family enterprise.

Unlike a regular post graduate programme, the FBMP uses a live laboratory for each student pertaining only to his organisation. Positioned for small- and medium-sized family businesses, the programme aims at capturing those families which cannot afford to send their scions to American business schools.

Another best practice which the Institute has been using for nearly six years -- without any glitches -- is of providing a live context to the students for gaining hands-on experience in administration. As a result, more than 10 functions are managed directly by student teams. These include admissions, placements,infrastructure expansion, social projects and public relations. Each team develops a formal plan that enumerates the routine tasks and sets a two-year rolling development plan.