Mantravat: The Flagship Case Competition By IIM Udaipur

1. About the Case Competition

Mantravat is the flagship case competition hosted by the Consulting Club (Consultu) of IIM Udaipur, one of the newer IIMs gaining recognition for high-quality operations and strategy cases. Team Udaipuria from IIM Rohtak took home the winner’s title, competing against teams from top B-schools across India. The case falls squarely in the operations, governance, and digital transformation domain.

India’s construction sector, valued at $740 billion with a projected CAGR of 6.87% through 2030, is paradoxically the second least digitised industry in the country. Securing a building permit takes an average of 142 days, and up to 60% of construction projects experience delays. The root causes are structural: plan vetting relies on slow, error-prone manual scrutiny; inter-departmental NOC clearances from agencies like Fire and AAI remain paper-based and siloed; land records verification lacks transparency; and manual fee calculations create payment disputes. The result is a system that throttles urbanisation at precisely the moment India needs to house a population trending toward 40% urban by 2030.

The deck opens with a crisp executive summary that maps the industry context before moving into the problem architecture, six distinct pain points across four process stages. The diagnosis is sharp: the bottleneck isn’t a single broken step but a chain of disconnected, paper-dependent workflows that compound delays at every handoff.

The core recommendation is e-Nirman, a digital approval platform structured around three objectives: platform standardisation through a Single Digital Gateway under MoHUA, advanced technology deployment for quality assurance via AI-based review and drone/IoT inspections, and accountability enforcement through real-time tracking and governance dashboards. The three-feature “3 Cs” framework- Centralisation, Conflict Resolution, and Closure- elegantly structures how each module solves a specific failure mode. The implementation thinking and phased governance design are also central to the strategy in Mantravat – IIM Udaipur.

The feasibility section is one of the deck’s strongest moments. Seven recommendations are scored across financial and operational dimensions, plotted on a perceptual map, and prioritised, with the Digital Single Window, AI Review System, and Reporting Dashboard emerging as green-zone short-term priorities. Virtual inspections via IoT/drones are screened out after failing the feasibility threshold, demonstrating analytical discipline. A comprehensive stakeholder mapping across regulators, contractors, architects, and citizens adds execution credibility. This kind of rigorous prioritisation and roadmap design is also explored in Cityscape 2.0 – IIM Rohtak & Lucknow.

The implementation roadmap spans 2025–2035 across three phases: a metro pilot across 10 cities (2025–27), tier-2 and tier-3 expansion to 300+ ULBs (2027–30), and full national integration with mandatory BIM-based approvals and an AI Oversight Cell under MoHUA (2030–35). The annexures add methodological depth — a maturity assessment tracking the as-is to to-be transition across strategic, financial, and technology dimensions, and a solution gameboard ranking all seven recommendations by priority category. This phased digital rollout approach closely mirrors the execution logic in Strategem – Masters’ Union.

Key Takeaways:

• Diagnose systemic failure as a chain of disconnected handoffs, not isolated breakdowns
• Use a perceptual map to prioritise recommendations by impact-vs-effort before committing to a roadmap
• Frame AI and automation within a “human-in-loop” safeguard to address adoption resistance credibly
• Stakeholder mapping across educate / incentivise / mandate axes strengthens execution feasibility
• Three-phase implementation with clear phase gates and governance milestones signals delivery confidence to judges

India’s construction market stands at $740 billion, with the sector contributing 9.05% to GVA in 2024. The current approval process averages 180 days; e-Nirman targets a reduction to 30 days. Administrative costs per approval drop from ₹50,000 to ₹30,000, a 40% reduction. Digital traceability jumps from 25% to 90%, and scalability coverage moves from 20% to 90% of ULBs. Transparency and accuracy improve by 70% under the proposed system.

This deck is essential for MBA students preparing for operations, consulting, and public policy cases, particularly those targeting infrastructure, smart cities, or govtech mandates. First-year B-school students will gain a strong template for structured problem decomposition and phased implementation planning. Final-year students eyeing consulting roles will find the feasibility scoring and stakeholder mapping frameworks directly replicable. For a broader library of winning frameworks across domains, explore CaseBuzz, India’s go-to platform for case competition preparation.

• Paramarsh 2.0 – IIM Raipur – A policy framework case with strong KPI dashboards and government execution design; ideal pairing for public-sector strategy prep.
• Nautica 2026 – MDI Gurgaon – Integrated governance and PESTLE-driven strategy for a public-sector mandate; complements e-Nirman’s regulatory and ESG dimensions.
• Netrutva 4.0 – IIM Kashipur – Covers digital transformation, change management, and operations strategy with financial modeling; strong reference for the technology adoption and resistance dimensions of this case.