Media Release
Dubai, Mar 25: Milan -2010, Aavo Gaav Chale, a Rural Marketing Mela organized by Marketing Club of AIMIT, St Aloysius College, Mangalore was inaugurated by Prem Kudva, Managing Director, Canara Springs, Mangalore on 25th march at 3 p.m. at St Aloysius College auditorium. MILAN symbolises the responsibility that management students should have in them. This spirit of serving rural people runs through every heart and soul of AIMIT Students. ‘Milan’ stands for coming together and as the proverb goes, coming together is the beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success.
God’s blessing was invoked for this auspicious occasion by a prayer song. The dignitaries present on the dais were the chief guest Shri Premanatha Kuduv and also alumnus of St. Aloysius College, Fr. Denzil lobo SJ, Director of AIMIT, Dr. S Sridhar, Dean of M.B.A and Girish, Milan faculty coordinator.
Abhignan , the student coordinator of Milan gave an insight about Milan. It was initiated by the marketing students 2007-09 batch. He said that it was an attempt by the students to practically apply the theoretical rural marketing concepts in practice. The idea behind Milan is to bring the rural products at the door step at urban people. It provides platform for the rural artisans from different places to showcase their talents through their products.
The artisans have come from Mangalore, Belgaum, Kodachadri, Kerala and even as far as Kanyakumari, Marketing their own products is a challenge for rural artisans, and Milan is a golden opportunity for them because the marketing aspects is handled by the students.
Rachita welcomed the gathering. The Chief Guest’s spoke on how rural people have to work hard with limited resources especially when it comes to infrastructure. He told how St. Aloysius College has given him knowledge and experience still, this rural mela is a new experience to him. Mahatma Gandhi stressed the nation should be built around the village and Milan was a step in the right direction to achieve the goal of the father of the nation.
Fr. Denzil Lobo in his speech gave a interesting point on how there has been an improvement from last year in terms of increase in the number of vendors and the presence of vendors from as far from kanyakumari a proof to the beginning of the success which Milan-2010 will be achieving. He congratulated Mr. Girish for his innovative thinking and for introducing a novel idea-Milan to Aloysius. After attending the rural camp, a question that run riot in the minds of students was what can be done to help the rural people. Milan-2010 is an ideal opportunity for rural people organised by AIMIT students, to serve rural India. He also shed light on how middlemen buy goods from rural artisans at a cheap rate and sell in the city for wide margin. Those who toil don’t reap the reward for their efforts. As management students, it’s their responsibility to provide a platform for rural artisans to showcase their creativity and also enable for them to get their deserved reward. In the end Fr. Denzil touched upon the critical aspect on creating wealth for rural people which is long lasting and will automatically spurt educations in rural India and concluded that coming up with a relevant model will be a challenge to management students to create wealth among rural people.
Ellen proposed the vote of thanks and the winded up by a video presentation on Milan by the IT team. Thus began an event that happens in very few B-Schools, and AIMIT is the pioneer in bringing rural artisans to showcase and market their products in cities. AIMIT is one of those few colleges that think about the social cause.