Lucknow, Sept. 12: The premier business school here is looking beyond the city and into the future, when perhaps it will be called ?International Institute of Management?.

Besieged by requests from industrial houses to run module courses to upgrade their managerial cadre, Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, is looking to set up shop in the industrial hub of Noida.

?The new campus in Noida is a deliberate strategy to bring about a change of face of IIML because of its locational disadvantage,? former institute director Pritam Singh said at a recent workshop here.

The demand ? fuelled by the B-school?s state-of-the-art infrastructure ? is such that the new venture will kick off from June, 2005, from rented premises even before the 23-acre campus comes up in 2006.

IIML, too, had started off from rented premises in old Lucknow till its present, green campus was set up on Sitapur Road, 30 km from here.

?The Noida campus will start functioning from 2005 and supplement some jobs we have been doing here in Lucknow,? institute dean Bharat Bhaskar said.

But why Noida? ?Historically,? Bhaskar said, ?the decimation of Kanpur, about 70 km from our campus, as the industrial heart of Uttar Pradesh proved to be a handicap. The satellite campus in Noida, the new industrial pilgrimage of Uttar Pradesh, would cater to the corporate challenges faced by management graduates (already) in jobs.?

For students? hands-on experience of the corporate set-up, the upcoming campus at Sector 32, near Khonda village, will also have a board-meeting facility for practising chief executives.

?The executives and managers who are already working need to be trained on the basis of the need of the hour. So, these personnel can be trained through weekend classes at the centre for faculty development on the Noida campus,? said IIML communication-in-charge Roshanlal Raina.

The Rs 30-crore project will include a rooftop restaurant.

The Noida campus will have a deputy director leading a team of 15 permanent faculty members, backed by information technology personnel. The team will keep in touch with the Lucknow campus via video conferencing.

The students, mainly practising professionals, will be equipped to cope with rapid globalisation. ?To enable managers to have a global vision, the Noida campus would introduce International MBA course, for which some trainees would come from companies with sponsorship,? Bhaskar said.