Ahmedabad, March 18 (IANS) The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and state-run Union Bank of India (UBI) Wednesday signed an agreement for fostering research on small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The bank will provide a grant of Rs.20 million for starting 'Union Bank Chair Professor of SME' at IIM-A and for carrying out research programmes titled 'Union Bank Research Programme on the SME Segment' for a period of six years, institute director Samir Barua told reporters.
The deal has a provision to extend the programme and the chair professorship for a another six years.
He said the Chair Professorship was granted by the bank to a senior IIM-A faculty Sebastian Morris, who had been carrying out research on SMEs.
Added M.V. Nair, chairman and managing director (CMD) of Union Bank: 'We chose IIM-A because of the fact that the findings of the research on SMEs would help us study and analyse the risk associated with the segment as well as improve the credit quality to the sector.'
'Credit worth Rs.14,000 crore (Rs.140 billion) advanced by the bank so far in the country has gone to the SME segment which comprises 16 percent of the bank's total lending portfolio,' he said.
The bank recruited 18 final year post-graduate programme students this year from the IIM-A campus out of the 60 to be hired from IIMs across the country, Nair added.
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