Bhuabneswar, September 11(odisha.in) In an attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice, the students of Rural Management at Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) organized promotional campaigns for ayurvedic soap Medimix & fertilizers of Paradeep Phosphates Limited (PPL) at Khurda and Cuttack districts of the Orissa.
The campaign has been launched Sunday by Rural Managers’ Association of XIMB (RMAX) as part of the pre-fair promotions of the selected companies. This year, several companies chose to participate in this effort of the rural management students to gain first hand experience from the fields.
The RMAX has planned to launch similar promotional campaigns for Hindustan Unilever Limited, Britannia Industries Limited, Lotte India Corporations Limited, ICICI Lombard, et al. in the next few weeks.
“The case study and classroom pedagogy helps us in divergent and out of box thinking. During the classroom exercises, we feel that we have learnt enough to face the challenges outside the world, but after coming to real market situation everything seems to be different. In many ways, I realize that field exposure is essential to corroborate the theories of management,” said Sandeep Kumar Saxena,student co-ordinator of RMAX.
The campaign flagged off with sanitation campaign of Medimix using flip charts, posters and live demonstrations by students of XIMB in Kakarudrapur in Khurda district which is about 35km away from Bhubaneswar city.
All participants received free samples of Medimix, the ayurvedic soap sans chemical. About 80 women participated from 12 different SHGs from the periphery of 3-5 kms radius. Each SHGs had five representatives namely- secretary, president, treasurers, board members and general body members.
All participants showed keen interest in the product and exhibited appreciable business acumen to gain from this product. Realising potential of the product and convincing reply from the students, Satyabhama Panda of Maabana Durga SHGs termed Medimix as a profitable business venture considering the ayurvedic nature of the product costing lesser than the popular products of those villages.
Another participant, Nirupama Behera lauded the efforts of XIMB students and said, “The sanitation campaign is very important for rural people, because people don’t care much about these aspects. Therefore we need more such campaigns at regular intervals.”
Another promotional campaign PPL, organized by the RMAX team on the same day at Nischintkoli in Cuttack district, also received overwhelming response from the enthusiastic farmers. The mobile van promotion of PPL attracted huge crowds as more than 150 farmers huddled around to obtain the latest farming practices and information about the various aspects related to it.
Biswajit Nanda, Market Development Officer in Orissa of PPL apprised farmers about the latest know-how about the farming technology besides updating them about the soil testing and knowledge about how to boost agricultural production. He explained the farmers how to get maximum return from a given land using limited quantity of fertilizer.
“During today’s session, I came to know where and how to do the soil testing as it will help me in saving money on consumption of fertilizer,” said a farmer at the end of the promotional campaign of PPL.
Odisha.in