Quick Answer: A live project is a real, time bound assignment a company hands to a management student, worked on while the student is still in class, separate from the longer summer internship. Among established Delhi management institutes, NDIM runs both a domestic live project track and a dedicated International Live Projects programme spanning multiple countries, while IMI New Delhi, FORE School of Management and IILM each build live projects into their core PGDM curriculum, usually alongside the mandatory summer internship rather than as a separate credit.
Ask most PGDM applicants what “practical learning” means and they will point to the summer internship. Few know that a second, shorter form of industry exposure exists inside almost every serious Delhi management programme: the live project. It is shorter than an internship, often runs alongside regular classes rather than during a semester break, and it is usually the first time a first year student works on an actual business problem for a real company rather than a textbook case study.
This article explains what a live project actually is, how it differs from an internship, compares how Delhi’s leading management institutes structure their live project programmes, and gives you a way to verify any college’s live project claims before you rely on them to choose a PGDM programme.
Why Live Projects Matter More Than Classroom Case Studies
A case study in a management classroom is written after the fact, with the outcome already known and the messy details already cleaned up. A live project has no such safety net. A company hands students a real, unresolved business problem, a market entry question, a process inefficiency, a consumer research gap, and expects a usable recommendation within a fixed number of weeks.
This distinction matters to recruiters. A student who can say they worked on an actual assignment for a named company, with a real deadline and a real stakeholder, has a materially stronger story in a placement interview than a student who can only point to classroom coursework. It also matters earlier in the programme than the summer internship does, since live projects are typically offered to first year students well before the internship season begins.
For background on how live projects fit into the wider picture of practical learning at Delhi PGDM colleges, see Which PGDM Colleges in Delhi Have the Strongest Industry Exposure?, which covers live projects alongside internships, corporate mentoring and CXO interactions. This article goes deeper into the live project component specifically.
What a Live Project Actually Means in a PGDM or MBA Programme
How a Live Project Differs from an Internship
The two are often confused, so it helps to separate them clearly. A summer or winter internship is a longer, single company placement, usually eight to twelve weeks, that a student completes during a semester break and that carries significant academic credit. A live project is shorter, sometimes a few weeks, is frequently run in parallel with regular coursework rather than during a break, and can involve several students working together on one company’s problem rather than one student embedded full time inside the organisation.
Domestic Live Projects
Most live projects happen with companies operating in and around the student’s home city. In Delhi’s case, this usually means projects with companies headquartered in the capital region, spanning market research, consumer behaviour studies, process improvement assignments and strategy recommendations.
International Live Projects
A smaller number of institutes extend the live project model beyond India, sending students to work on a short term assignment in a foreign country, often combined with a management or social responsibility component. This is a meaningfully different and rarer offering than a purely domestic live project track, since it requires an institute to have functioning partnerships with organisations or academic institutions abroad.
Why the Distinction Matters When Comparing Colleges
A college that only offers domestic live projects is not necessarily weaker than one offering both, since the quality of the domestic project matters more than its geography for most recruiters. But if global business exposure is a priority for you, the presence or absence of an international live project track is a meaningful differentiator worth checking directly rather than assuming.
The Delhi NCR Advantage for Live Project Access
Location has a particular relevance for live projects that goes beyond what it offers for internships. Because a live project usually runs for only a few weeks and often happens alongside regular classes rather than during a dedicated break, it depends heavily on a company being close enough for faculty coordinators and student teams to hold in person review meetings, site visits or client presentations without major travel.
Delhi NCR’s concentration of corporate headquarters, from FMCG and BFSI companies to consulting firms and startups, gives management institutes based here a structural advantage in sourcing a steady pipeline of short term, real business problems that a first year class can realistically take on. A college outside a major metro often has to rely on longer term, less frequent tie ups precisely because arranging a six to eight week live project with a company hours away is logistically harder to repeat every semester.
This advantage, again, only converts into value if an institute has built an active pipeline rather than a handful of one off tie ups. The presence of a dedicated Corporate Resource Centre, the kind NDIM runs to coordinate live projects, internships and placements together, is a more reliable signal of a working pipeline than the number of companies listed on a website’s logo wall, since logos can remain on a page long after a relationship has lapsed.
How Live Projects Strengthen a Placement Interview
The most practical reason to care about live project quality is what it gives you to talk about later. A placement interview panel routinely asks candidates to walk through a specific project they have worked on, and a live project gives a first year student, someone who has not yet completed a summer internship, something concrete to describe: the business problem, the company, the approach taken, and the outcome delivered.
This matters particularly for students without prior work experience, since a live project is often the first opportunity in the programme to demonstrate applied thinking rather than only academic performance. A student who can describe a live project done for a named company, including what recommendation was made and what the company’s response was, generally comes across stronger in an interview than one who can only discuss classroom assignments.
International live projects, where available, add a further dimension recruiters increasingly value: evidence that a candidate can operate outside a purely domestic business context. A student who has completed a live project in a foreign market, even a short six week engagement, has a specific, verifiable example to draw on when a recruiter asks about adaptability or cross cultural work, a question that has become more common as Indian companies expand their own international operations.
Management Institutes in Delhi Compared on Live Project Programmes
The table below summarises how live projects are structured at some of Delhi’s established PGDM and management institutes, based on each institute’s own published material.
| Institute | Live Project Structure | Notable Detail |
| NDIM, Tughlakabad | A domestic live project track described as an important part of the learning pedagogy, run alongside summer and winter internships, plus a separate International Live Projects programme | NDIM’s homepage currently places the number of live projects at 900, and the International Live Projects programme has offered over 200 six week projects across countries including Russia, China, Malaysia, Egypt, Mauritius, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Tanzania |
| IMI New Delhi | Live projects positioned as one of several corporate immersion interventions within the curriculum, alongside corporate mentoring | IMI’s own programme material groups corporate immersion, corporate mentoring and live projects together as complementary interventions that expose students to the current business environment |
| FORE School of Management | Both summer and live projects described as a fundamental part of the academic curriculum | FORE’s 2025 to 2027 batch of 720 students includes a mix of experienced and fresher profiles working across internships and live projects, alongside an NIRF 2025 management rank of 59 |
| IILM, Lodhi Road | Live projects described as an integral part of the PGDM curriculum alongside the summer internship | Companies named in connection with internship and live project opportunities include ITC, Colgate, Marico, Britannia, Bajaj FinServ and Nielsen |
A pattern worth noting here: live projects at IMI, FORE and IILM are generally folded into the same broader industry exposure bucket as the summer internship, without being reported as a separately tracked number the way NDIM does with its homepage counter and its dedicated International Live Projects programme. If a specific live project count matters to your decision, it is worth asking each college directly for its current year figure, since these numbers change from year to year and are not always kept up to date on every page of a college’s website.
Inside NDIM’s Live Project Model
NDIM treats live projects as a distinct track from the internship programme rather than a subset of it, with a separate domestic component and a separate international component.
Domestic Live Projects
NDIM’s own Live Projects page describes live projects as an important part of the institute’s learning pedagogy, intended to expose students to hands on practice of management theories learned in the classroom, in addition to the summer and winter internships. NDIM’s homepage currently places the total number of live projects offered at 900, alongside more than 1300 internship and full time job offers and over 250 companies visiting the campus each year through the Corporate Resource Centre. It is worth noting that NDIM’s various institutional pages have reported different project counts at different points in time, a figure of over 700 in one twelve month period and a combined two year figure above 1500 in another, which is a normal pattern for any institute that updates its statistics from year to year rather than a discrepancy to be concerned about. The current homepage figure of 900 is the most recently published number as of this writing.
International Live Projects
NDIM runs a separate International Live Projects programme, which has offered students over 200 live projects of six weeks duration in countries including Russia, China, Malaysia, Egypt, Mauritius, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Tanzania. According to NDIM’s own material, these projects combine a management discipline focus with a social responsibility component, and each student is additionally expected to complete one short project on a business or management issue specific to the country they are placed in. This international track sits within NDIM’s broader International Immersion programme, alongside the Japan Centre of Excellence and Korea Centre of Excellence.
How Live Projects Connect to Corporate Mentoring and Placements
Live projects at NDIM run alongside the institute’s Corporate Mentoring Programme, which pairs students with senior industry professionals for one to one mentoring, and its Internships track. Together these three, live projects, mentoring and internships, form the practical learning component that NDIM’s PGDM Programme is built around, feeding into the final Placements process and the list of Recruiters at NDIM. For the fuller picture of how this practical learning structure compares to placement outcomes across Delhi PGDM colleges, see Which PGDM Colleges in Delhi Have Strong Corporate Connections and Recruiter Networks?
How to Verify a College’s Live Project Claims Before You Apply
| What to Ask | Why It Matters |
| How many live projects did last year’s batch actually complete | Separates a genuine, current programme from a number that has not been updated in several years |
| Are live projects individual or team based | Team based projects may mean less individual ownership of the deliverable, which matters for what you can claim in an interview |
| Does the college offer an international live project option, and is it open to all students or a selected few | Determines whether global exposure is a realistic option for you specifically |
| Is the live project a separate track from the internship, or counted as part of it | Affects how much distinct practical exposure you actually get across the programme |
| Which companies were involved in the most recent cycle | A current, named list is a stronger signal than a general claim of “top companies” |
Common Mistakes Students Make While Comparing Live Project Claims
Treating “live projects” and “internships” as interchangeable. They are related but distinct forms of industry exposure, and a college that is strong in one is not automatically strong in the other. Ask about both separately.
Assuming a large historical number still applies today. As shown by NDIM’s own year to year figures, project counts fluctuate. A number from an older page or a student review may no longer reflect the current batch’s experience.
Overlooking whether the project is domestic or international. If working on a project abroad matters to you, do not assume a general “live projects” claim on a college’s website includes an international option unless it is stated explicitly.
Not asking who evaluates the live project. A project with no formal evaluation or company feedback loop offers less structured learning than one with a defined output the company or faculty formally reviews.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a live project and a summer internship in a PGDM programme?
A summer internship is a longer, single company placement, usually eight to twelve weeks, completed during a semester break with significant academic credit attached. A live project is typically shorter, sometimes runs alongside regular coursework, and can involve a group of students working on a real business problem for a company over a few weeks.
Which Delhi management institute offers international live projects?
NDIM runs a dedicated International Live Projects programme, which has offered students over 200 six week live projects across countries including Russia, China, Malaysia, Egypt, Mauritius, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Tanzania, combining management and social responsibility components.
Do all PGDM colleges in Delhi offer live projects?
Live projects are common across established, AICTE approved PGDM colleges in Delhi, though the structure varies. Some, like NDIM, track live projects as a separate programme from the internship. Others, like IMI, FORE and IILM, describe live projects as part of the same broader industry exposure component as the summer internship.
How many live projects does NDIM offer its students?
NDIM’s homepage currently states 900 live projects, in addition to a separate International Live Projects programme that has offered over 200 six week international projects. Figures like this are updated periodically, so always confirm the current year’s number directly with the institute.
Should the number of live projects be the main factor in choosing a PGDM college?
No. The number matters less than whether the projects are individually evaluated, connected to real companies with a defined deliverable, and, if international exposure matters to you, whether that option is genuinely open to you rather than restricted to a small group.
Final Word
If live project exposure is something you are weighing while shortlisting a PGDM or MBA programme in Delhi, do not stop at the word “live projects” on a college’s website. Ask how many were completed by the most recent batch, whether the projects are individual or team based, whether an international option exists, and who evaluates the output. Institutes that can answer these questions with specifics, the way NDIM can point to both a domestic live project track and a named International Live Projects programme, are giving you something you can actually plan a PGDM decision around.
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