Maha Mandi a maha success

Students from Powai-based National Institute of Industrial Engineering, (NITIE), had organised a Maha Mandi in a bid to help the underprivileged on Saturday. They earned a revenue of nearly Rs11 lakhs, that will be donated to Navnirmiti, an NGO that works towards the dissemination of education among the underprivileged children and empowerment of women.

They decided to walk down the streets to sell educational toys made by the NGO.

Like every year, this year too the event began with participants pledging to the Maha Mandi motto of "Socho, becho, seekho".

"Such an event has a two-fold benefit," said Tanul Suman, an organiser of the event, "This is the best opportunity for students to test the classroom theories of sales and marketing out in the market while for the NGO, it becomes a medium to make large sales that enable them to enhance the services they provide to under-privileged children and women."

A staunch Gandhian, Dr T Prasad, faculty at NITIE and brainchild of the event, said, "The Indian education system is painful and cumbersome. An event like this help boost students confidence. The idea is to instill a sense of social help, learning and self-help."

This explains the popularity of this event, where more than 2,000 students participated from various premiere B-schools.