Bhopal, Mar 29: The Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) will confer diplomas to the 36 outgoing students of 19th batch of two-year PGDFM course and 17 students of 13th batch of one-year Post Masters Course on Natural Resource Management (MRM) at the convocation ceremony today. Union Minister for Human Resource Development Arjun Singh will be the chief guest of the function. He will also honour the meritorious students with Chairperson's Gold and Silver Medals.

Prof DK Bandyopadhyay, Director, IIFM while briefing about the convocation informed that the Institute would be celebrating its silver jubilee year and is privileged to have Arjun Singh as the chief guest of the function. He was primarily instrumental in bringing this institute, which was functioning at IIM, Ahmadabad to Bhopal in 1982. As the visionary Chief Minister of the state, he readily allotted land to the institute at Bhopal and arranged to the laying of its foundation stone by the then Prime Minister Ms Indira Gandhi, he added.

During this Convocation, apart from conferring diplomas to the passed out students, the meritorious students will also be awrded with the Chairperson's Gold and Silver Medals by the chief guest. So far IIFM has been maintaining its track record of 100 per cent campus placement since the beginning of the PGDFM Course in 1988. The batch of students who are going to receive the PGDFM Diploma have distinguished themselves by bagging plum placement offers, both from National and International Organizations.

This year the average salary package offered to these students touched Rs 7.2 lakhs per annum, the maximum being Rs 23 lakhs per annum. According to Institute's sources, apart from leading NGOs working in the development sector, leading national and international corporate organisations, particularly in the fields of forestry operations, paper manufacturing and micro finance are increasingly showing interest in the campus recruitments as they see lot of managerial potential among the students graduating from IIFM.

The convocation will be attended by PR Mohanti, Director General of Forests and Special Secretary, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIFM. Many IIFM Board Members would also be taking part in the convocation ceremony.