XLRI is one of the most prestigious colleges for MBA in India and each year it organises the Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) on a national level that allows students to seek admissions to post graduate management programmes at over 150 B-schools. This year too students are desperately awaiting the results to know if they stand a chance to get one step closer to their dream of studying in XLRI. Owing to its proximity to Ranchi, which is a Maoist dominated region, it’s surprising to know that students apply to the college with much enthusiasm every year, paying no heed to the security and safety aspect.
To find out if at any given point of time, safety was a concern, that deterred students from striking XLRI out of their potential MBA college lists, PaGaLGuY conducted a poll, which had almost 201 participants. Out of this, 164 students said no, they never put in any thought about this aspect, while 37 students said yes, they had.
Nilanjan Dutta, an XLRI alumnus said that safety was never a concern. “Jamshedpur is a very safe city and so is the XLRI campus. We never felt insecure or unsafe at any given point of time. In fact, life at XLRI is quite happening and safety is not even an issue,” he said. Abhishek Panda, a first year XLRI student had the same thing to say. “Campus life is very safe and even the girls from our college have never complained about the issue. Yes, perhaps the journey from Ranchi airport to the college could be a bit overwhelming, but so far there hasn’t been any incident to get us all worried,” he said.
Vivek Arora, a(2012-14) batch alumnus said, “The college has ensured the safety of its students throughout. So safety is never an issue. At night the area does get a little dark and transportation is an issue, but not so big that it becomes a cause of worry.”
There has almost never been any incident reported to state that XLRI is an unsafe place. The Maoist movement has also never been reported from close to the college site. However, that it is far from a national airport makes it a bit of an inconvenience ride. There is a local airport in the vicinity of the college, but not open to the public in general. This sometimes makes an issue during placements. Not all companies take the trouble to go to the college to pick its future employees. Of course, video conferencing and Skype have managed to diminish this concern over the years. In fact, after the Tata’s, it is XLRI that has given the steel city a shine of its own.