Ahmedabad

Meeting people at IIM Udaipur

IIM Udaipur is the 2011 IIM whose 300-acre campus at Balicha in the Aravalli hills was designed by Pritzker laureate B.V. Doshi, a car-free, fort-inspired campus where hostels sit on two hillocks and classes happen in the valley between them.

The story of IIM Udaipur

IIM Udaipur was established in 2011 and inaugurated by C.P. Joshi, then Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways. Its first 57 PGP students began at the Mohanlal Sukhadia University campus in Udaipur, where the institute spent its first five years.

The permanent campus at Balicha opened in 2016. B.V. Doshi designed it with hostels and faculty housing on each hillock and the academic block linking them in the valley, drawing on Rajasthan's fort heritage and courtyard layouts. Check dams channel monsoon rain into a series of interlinked lakes, a 500 KW solar plant powers the campus, and the design earned a 5-star GRIHA rating.

In 2018 IIM Udaipur became the youngest institute in India to receive AACSB accreditation. Alongside the two-year MBA, it runs one-year MBAs in Global Supply Chain Management and Digital Enterprise Management, and doctoral programmes.

What the campus is like socially

Balicha feels like a hill retreat with deadlines. Bikes are parked at the main gate and four-wheelers are a strict no, so the campus is walked end to end, and students describe waking to sunrise in a valley where the skyline dips into the mountains. One early resident described the place as a cross between Hogwarts and relics of ancient India.

The mess, with the open area in front of it, is the social hub, and the night canteen stays open until 3 AM. The batches are increasingly diverse: the 2026 to 2028 MBA cohort of 378 students is 65.87% women.

Traditions every IIM Udaipur student knows

• Audacity: The cultural fest. Audacity 2025 ended on 9 February with Mohammed Irfan, Sufi singer Majid Khan and comedian Madhur Virli.
• Solaris: The management summit that brings industry leaders to campus.
• Utkrisht and Udaipur Runs: The annual sports fest, and its biggest outdoor event, an open run through the city. The sixth edition was held on 12 December 2022.
• Karobaar: Students plan, cook and sell food on campus from scratch as a hands-on business exercise.
• Balicha Haat: A student marketplace to buy, sell and earn on campus.

Campus lore and insider spots

• No cars past the gate: The vehicle ban makes Balicha one of the quietest IIM campuses in India.
• The MLSU years: The first five batches studied at Mohanlal Sukhadia University before the move to Balicha in 2016.
• Lakes in the making: The campus's interlinked lakes, fed by check dams, are a nod to Udaipur, the City of Lakes.
• One architect, two IIMs: B.V. Doshi also designed IIM Bangalore, so students love comparing the two campuses.

How to find your people here

At IIM Udaipur, a club or committee is the fastest way to build a real social circle, since the two-year program moves fast and most lasting friendships come out of a shared case comp or event team.

Fests and societies at IIM Udaipur

Signature fests

• Audacity
• Solaris
• Utkrisht

Notable societies

• Saksham (E-Cell)
• Finomina
• Consult U

Societies worth knowing at IIM Udaipur

• Saksham: The entrepreneurship cell, running Prarambh with two months of mentorship, the Saudagar business plan contest, the Chakravyuh market simulation, Karobaar and Balicha Haat.
• Finomina: The finance and investments club.
• Consult U: The consulting prep club.
• Cultural Committee: Runs Audacity and festival nights through the year.

Careers, internships and placements

IIM Udaipur's MBA graduates go into consulting, BFSI, marketing, analytics, operations and general management roles, and the one-year supply chain and digital enterprise MBAs feed specialised pipelines.

Saksham's competitions and the incubation ecosystem give founders a route outside placements, and the institute is known for research output among Indian B-schools.

Rivalries and eternal debates

IIM Udaipur is compared constantly with its 2010-11 batchmates, Kashipur, Raipur, Rohtak, Ranchi and Trichy. Students lead with the Doshi campus, AACSB and the car-free calm of Balicha.

What IIM Udaipur is talking about now

A women-majority MBA batch, growing one-year programmes and the maturing Balicha campus shape campus life today.

Meeting people at IIM Udaipur by interest

A lot of friendships here form around a shared interest rather than a class or a hostel wing. If you are into startups and builders, finance and investing, debating and mun, running, and reading and book clubs, those pages cover where that scene actually happens in India and how to find people near you who are into the same thing.

Colleges nearby

IIM Udaipur sits close to IIM Ahmedabad, National Law University Jodhpur, and NID Ahmedabad, all part of the same Ahmedabad student scene. Cross-college friendships often start at inter-college fests, hackathons, or shared-interest communities rather than in class.

Similar campuses across India

If you are looking beyond your own campus, students at IIM Visakhapatnam, IIM Amritsar, and IIM Bangalore share a similar campus culture, and Zyber works the same way at each: showing you verified people nearby who match on interest, intent, or timing.

Zyber on campus

Zyber is built for meeting people nearby in real time, with verified profiles only. At IIM Udaipur, that means showing you people near you who share your interests or your drive, whether or not you overlap on a class or a society.

New to IIM Udaipur? Start here

If you are just starting out, these freshers guides are written for exactly this moment: first week of college checklist, how to choose societies in college, making friends beyond your branch, and case competitions for freshers.

See meeting people in Ahmedabad, events in Ahmedabad, the freshers guide, the Meet People pillar, or read what Zyber is.